Leaving the Hot Well Dunes to escape the arrival of what
could be a lot of ATV's left us with a question, where are we going to go for
the weekend? We definitely want to go
back and spend some more time at the hot tubs, but where to go? We stopped at the Safford BLM office to get
some ideas. The lady at the desk was
very helpful but little less then accurate.
We purchased a couple BLM land maps and decided on driving
out the Klondyke Road to the Aravipa Canyon and camping there for the
weekend. It was now 4pm and 50 miles
away or hour and half to two hours with the camper. Klondyke Road is supposed to be a good dirt
road but it is 33 miles of dirt.
We drove north on highway 70 to just north of Pima to
Klondyke Road. It was a "good"
dirt road but slow at times due to the chatter bumps. I was surprised to see dozens of ranches and
power poles all the way back to Klondyke.
Just before 6pm we arrived at the town of Klondyke which consisted of a
small general store which was closed, a pay phone without the phone, a BLM
office and a campground.
It was getting dark so we decided to stay at the
"Fourmile Campground". This is
a National Forest Service campground. No
hookups, no water at all right now except for in the bathrooms, small probably
only a dozen sites but they did have flush toilets. Only one other camper here tonight and as we
went to bed we could tell it was going to be a cold night but the stars were
bright and beautiful.
The next morning we woke up to 10 degrees and our water
frozen up so I went to the bathrooms to get water for our morning coffee. After coffee I figured out that the water was
only frozen at the water inlet. A little
pipe insulation would fix this but for now I started up the generator and the
hair dryer quickly thawed the hose.
Daytime temperatures were in the comfortable 60's and I
decided to just disconnect the trailer and do a day trip to Turkey Creek or the
end of the road to the Aravaipa Canyon.
This as it turned out was a good decision because this is where the lady
at the BLM did not give very good information.
She knew we were pulling a travel trailer and she told us there were
seven stream crossings once past Klondyke but we should find a campsite at
Turkey Creek. Well the stream crossings
could be done with any two wheel drive high clearance vehicle but I do not
thing pulling a travel trailer would have worked out so well and once back at
Turkey Creek the turnaround spot was Turkey Creek. No way a travel trailer could go down that
road. Thinking that we crossed that
stream more than seven times I counted on the way back, eleven crossings.
So what about this valley?
Aravaipa comes from the Papago, which means "little wells." The trail ( Aravaipa creek) is about 10-12
miles from the east to the west entrances.
There are not trails, designated campsites or signs. You follow the creek through the canyon with
several other canyons to explore if you desire.
I took a picture of this chapel and learned the story a few days
later. This use to be a house of prostitution but when her sons were sent off to WW I she promised
if they both returned she would change her ways and convert the house to a
house of god.
The end of the road at Turkey Creek. Hard to see here but I took this picture from the window of my truck sitting in the creek.
At one of the stream crossings we saw quite a few deer, one posed for me.
One of the stream crossings.
I am going to have to add this to my bucket list and come
back and hike this. To reduce the impact
on the area the BLM requires permits to enter the canyon allowing only 50 per
day. 30 from the West entrance and 20
from the East. You can only spend three
days in the canyon which I think is a bit restrictive knowing if you wanted to
explore all the side canyons you will need a lot more than three days.
Back at the Fourmile campground we had another cold night
and frozen pipes in the morning. Sure
hope this cold spell ends soon. By the
end of the day we made it back to Hot Well Dunes where the temperatures were
back into the upper 60's and the hot tub temperatures were still 104 degrees!
The next week was spent at the Hot Wells as I wrote about in
my previous entry so I won't write about it again but the following weekend we
went to Willcox, AZ for the "Birds over Willcox" festival.
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