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trail report
Successful Access and Trip to Turkey Creek/Rug Road
posted by
Leo Martinez
Wow what a logistical challenge this year! But everyone had a great time. Camping in Turkey Creek was magical as always and we enjoyed a new venue camping at Parson's Grove as well. The weather was fantastic.
The gate into Aravaipa Canyon (Norma Tapia's) was locked when we did our recon the week before our scheduled trip. After discussing numerous options and driving around the area looking for alternate access points we came upon a ranch caretaker (long story short) who would allow limited access across their ranch. Once access was confirmed we had to strategize access times for Friday and Saturday and 4 vehicles went in on Friday afternoon and another 6 came in on Saturday afternoon. Jayson & Jen - Disco I, Mike L & Mandy and kids - Disco II, Steve & SO and kids - Disco II, and Jon C - Disco I arrived late Friday and camped in Four Mile Canyon that night. Matt, Jaime, & Zach - Disco I, AJ & I - Disco I, Rob W - Disco II, and Chad - RR Classic camped in Turkey Creek Friday night. On Saturday, Jayson led an exploratory trip to access Turkey Creek from Four Mile Canyon while Rob W, Chad and I made our way up Turkey Creek (without paddles) hoping to meet Jayson's group. But with time running short and trail getting less and less we all decided to abort despite being less than a mile from each other.
Chad made his way back to the store at Klondyke and met with Jayson's group and Rob M & Jennie and lead them back into Turkey Creek. Jayson's group with the exception of Jon went ahead to set up camp in Parson's Grove. The rest of us remained in Turkey Creek to pack up and have dinner. After dinner we had a nice night run into Parson's Grove and set up camp with everyone else.
Sunday morning everyone was up and going early and we were on the trail by 9:00. We made our way up and over the hills and valleys and stopped at the major mine and explored for a bit. Then we tackled the first of many large loose rock hill climbs and everyone made it through without incident and very little spotting. We arrived at the Table Mountain saddle about 10:30 and stopped to enjoy the fantastic view of Mammoth and Mt. Lemmon in the distance. As we were proceeding down the trail toward the Rug Road Jon radioed that he was having a little trouble and needed assistance. When we walked back to Jon's Disco we discovered he had more than a little trouble as he was hanging off the shelf road and luckily a large boulder had wedged against this passenger side frame rail and that was the only thing keeping him from rolling down the step embankment. Well out came the winches, snatch blocks, shackles. Then we had to rearrange the vehicles to get a winch vehicle back up to Jon and then we ended up with 2 winch vehicles. Rob M and Chad positioned their vehicles with Rob up the road from Jon and Chad backed up the hill facing the side of Jon's Disco. We secured Jon's winch to a large boulder then we ran Rob's winch cable from his D-90 to Jon's rear trailer hitch. We tried pulling Jon forward while Rob kept his rear from going down hill but this did not work. So we ran Rob's cable through a snatch block on Jon's trailer hitch and ran the cable to Chad's Range Rover. Then we pulled on Rob's cable and Jon's Disco moved left enough to get his passenger side wheels back on the ground and we were able to get his LR back on the trail by pulling him forward. Whew!
We stopped for lunch at the creek preparing for our ascent of the Rug Road. As we made our way up there was one very loose large rock section that required spotting and some trail building by Jayson and I but everyone made it through without being strapped. The rest of the Rug Road required everyone utmost attention to vehicle positioning to avoid banging metal and again everyone made it through without incident. When we reached the saddle we stopped for a break and learned that Rob M had a flat right rear tire. Out came the jacks and wheel wrenches and after several jack failures found out in working order (Rob was having a tough time with the jacks). This was our only flat tire since Turkey Creek. In Turkey Creek both Matt and Chad had flats. After replacing Rob's flat tire with his spare we proceeded down into Copper Creek and better roads. What a relief but with the faster speeds it was still a bumpy ride until we hit the pavement in Mammoth at 3:30. We stopped to air up and quickly got Steve and crew aired up so they could race to Sky Harbor Airport
to get the kids on a 6:30 plane. Hope they made it!
Thanks for a great trip and congratulations to everyone for completing this great trail! And kudos to the wives, SO and kids for putting up with all the banging heads against the window and getting bumped around all day. We ran this at a quicker pace than I'd like but everyone adapted well.
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