1/26/07___Bloody Basin/Upper Verde Valley Camping Trip & 4wd Exploring

[97badxj]

I will be taking an overnite camping/4x4 trip into the Bloody Basin/Middle Verde Valley area. Driving up to Verde Hot Springs/Childs Powerplant. Camping on the west side of the river, doing some side road exploring then driving back out via Dugas road. This is a pretty remote area, and I relly would like to have another rig to come along on the trip.

Difficulty is about 2.0-2.5 depending on weather conditions. Stock vehicles should be ok. So if you want to get back to the reason this sport started and get out to the "back of beyond" and see some seldom visited areas of the state with stunning scenery, come on and join in on this one.

I will meet anyone who wants to join at the Seven Springs Rd. turnoff on Bartlett Lake Rd. at 8AM on Saturday morning.





*On edit: Just realized I posted the wrong date. This trip is planned for 1/27/07 and 1/28/07*

[Symon623]

This would be awesome, bad timing for me. have a great time and do a trip report please.

[TiffanyV]

sounds like fun, but i am on that weekend, would love to hear how it goes though... :)

[mbuckner]

Good morning,

Can you give an estimate of the miles on this trip ....... the reason,
my TJ loves to shop at Shell more than my wife loves to shop at Dillards ....

Best regards,

Mike

[97badxj]

From the Shell station in Carefree on Cave Creek Rd. (last stop on the way in) all the way up and out then down I-17 to Cordes Junction (closest fuel stop after leaving area) not counting side trips is about 105mi. via my Delorme program. I will have 5gal extra with me, just in case. But I'm sure my full 20gal. tank should be plenty. I usually get about 10-12mpg while on the trail. So, if you don't have room for an extra can, it's ok I'll have some you can use if needed.

[schneiderdn]

Noticed your post and thought I'd pass on some useful info -- Just made this same trip two weekends ago and ran into a "road closed" sign upon turning onto Seven Springs Road northbound (sign is about 1/4-mile up the road). Thought our day on the trail was done, but luckly ran into a cop exiting the area. He said we could use the road (signs were posted to keep traffic to a minimum), but needed to be aware of road improvement crews working along the way. Apparently, several low wash areas within the first five miles needed to be improved for general vehicle use. Had no problem bypassing the road crews and were on our way. [However, judging by the addition of the hundreds of new homes in the area, we are assuming that it won't be long before everything is paved. :( ]

BTW, we started the trail with a full tank of gas and had more than a 1/2 tank left upon exiting on the other end of Bloody Basin (Exit 260 on I-17). We were driving a stock '00 TJ I6 with 31s and 3.73s.

[Symon623]

We did the trip from Bartlett to Sheeps Bridge on Christmas eve, the signs were up but we have a friend with a cabin up there we were going to visit...yea that's it. :D the road is good....FR16/powerline road is where it'll get rougher. Not certain about the Dugas road?

[97badxj]

All good info. How long from Seven Springs to Sheeps Bridge? Thinking of making it a side trip on the way in if enough time allows.

[Symon623]

11 miles from FR16/Powerline road, 12 from the Seven Springs/Bloody Basin intersection. I was in my 3/4 ton truck so it was slow goin, took us about 45 minutes. Sanely coulda done it in 20-30 in the Jeep.
Looking west where we came from, you can see teh road cut into the hillside.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j110/symon623/SheepsX8_1206.jpg

[97badxj]

Great!!! If we make it to the turn-off by noon (which shouldn't be a problem), we'll go ahead and make the side trip.

[Symon623]

Last I heard there's a slight chance of rain/snow with a snow level around 4000 feet this Friday and Saturday. Be careful and take lots o pics. Are you going alone?

Edit: just realized your going next weekend.

[mbuckner]

John,

Have you talked anyone else into going on the expedition?

Mike

[97badxj]

My brother and his 2 boys will be with me, he doesn't have a capable rig. So, just you and me.

[Washington_XJ]

I was looking to go offroading this saturday after going to the florance junction meet in phoenix. I wouldn't mind going on this trip though. Can you tell me a little more about the difficulty of the run? It might be just what my XJ needs to break in the new lift kit and tires.

EDIT: Plus the lady really wants to go camping this weekend.

[Symon623]

Washington, Where abouts are you from? I'm from Puyallup 7 years ago.

This trip would be do-able in a stock 4x4 under dry conditions, it is rough and 4 wheel drive will be needed. Of course exploring side roads might remind you if you need a locker or more clearence? The pic I posted of the bridge I did in my stock GMC HD no problem but man my dentist loves me. :D

Hopefully others will chime in to give you more info?

[westy]

I would expect snow on the eastern side of the Verde Rim..other than that its not a tough trail.

[mbuckner]

Hi John,

What is your cell number?

Best regards,

Mike

[Washington_XJ]

Washington, Where abouts are you from? I'm from Puyallup 7 years ago.

This trip would be do-able in a stock 4x4 under dry conditions, it is rough and 4 wheel drive will be needed. Of course exploring side roads might remind you if you need a locker or more clearence? The pic I posted of the bridge I did in my stock GMC HD no problem but man my dentist loves me. :D

Hopefully others will chime in to give you more info?

I'm from a combination of Seattle/Everett/Redmond.
As for the trail, that sounds easy enough. My 3" OME lift has just been finished and with the additions of 31x10.5's I can hardly wait to do a little wheeling.

[97badxj]

Cell #662-321-3058 for those here who want to get in touch. 3 rigs would be a perfect size group for a trip like this.

[David C]

Hi guys. I have been watching this thread everyday and chomping at the bit waiting to see for sure if I can go on this. And it looks like I can make it! :D I have to scrounge up some camping gear though. I have been from 7 Springs to Sheep's Bridge - it's a cake walk. Have not explored side roads though. I have not traveled Sheep's Bridge to the Verde Hot Springs, however I have gone Dugas Rd down the steep and narrow trail to the Hot Springs - not a cake walk! :eek: Our rigs are capable, but it will be slow going over rough terrain. I love going on 'old school' exploring trips, and this area is awesome! I will also have my laptop with gps running mapping software that will show our real-time position on USGS Topos and can switch to aerial photos with one button. Best part is the zoom from 64M per pixel (45-50 miles across screen) down to 1M per pixel (about 1/2 mile across screen). We will be able to see where any side road goes before deciding whether or not to take it. I also have the most current Tonto NF map - it is well done. This trip is gonna be a blast! I do think we should factor in extra time and expect slow going up past the Sheep's Bridge. Are the plans to make it to the Verde and camp there? I would vote for that.

[David C]

I found a pic of the steep section of road going up the Verde Rim towards Dugas and I-17. This pic is looking west and was taken near the MT Ranch Rd. intersection. Look at the hillside you can see the road cut into it.
This is the treacherous part of the trip.
http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9267&stc=1&d=1169718629

The views are incredible!
That is Sedona and Mt. Humphries (highest point in AZ) in the background.
http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9268&stc=1&d=1169718625

This is the exact area we will cross between the powerlines/Verde (campsite) and MT Ranch Rd/Dugas Rd. intersection. The MT Ranch is in there somewhere.
http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9269&stc=1&d=1169718625

[Symon623]

Sweet pics David. I wish I could make this trip. Keep us posted with pics and map views.

I agree that 7 springs to sheeps bridge is cake. not sure of the powerline road (FR16) and seems as if you know the D/O road.

Have fun guys.

[97badxj]

Yup, thats the plan as of now still. Drive in, go to Sheeps bridge and back to main rd. maybe explore some side roads, then camp at the river somewhere around the Springs area. I'm pretty sure the powerline rd. is about the same condition as the Dugas Rd. from the rim down on both.


*Anyone Planning to Go, Please Sign On For Trip On the "Old Site" Please*

[David C]

Signed up on old site. :D

[97badxj]

Ok guys, as of now we have 4 going. Here they are:


Me
Mike Buckner
David C.
Wash XJ

I'll see yeh all there in the morning!!!

[97badxj]

All I can say is WOW!!!!! J I'll post a trip report as soon as I get some sleep and recouperate.

[David C]

x2 on the WOW! This was a great trip! Traveled over 100 miles through very scenic and rugged mountains. Watched some guy swamp his Jeep trying to cross the Verde at the Sheeps Bridge (I have pics), tackled a few spots of rough terrain exploring lesser traveled forest roads, and found the steep and narrow Dugas road to have some thick snow on the steepest and most narrow parts :eek: - moderate pucker factor there when my Jeep slid a little towards the drop off! No time now to post pics and vid clips but they will be up this evening. Thanks John for setting this up and leading and to Paul and Mike for a great weekend!

[Symon623]

Awesome guys...lookin forward to readin the report and seein pics. Damn sorry I missed it.

[97badxj]

Ok here goes.



Day One:

Mike was a little early getting to the meet spot Sat., I was about 5-10min. late and well, David was draggin azz (LOL!!! just kidding) and showed up about a 1/4 till 9AM. Left out at 9, and on the way to 7 Springs we got passed by a couple of speeding sheriffs trucks. As soon as we got to the last restroom we found out why. Someone in a Geo Tracker slid into and rolled over in the stream at the creek crossing there and was half under water. We never did find out what happend to the occupants. Knowing we had a long day ahead, we didn't waste anytime airing down at the rest area and quickly headed out into the wilds of the central AZ Verde Valley.

Made good time and took in all the great Sonoran Desert scenery one could wish for, while we headed to our 1st stop at Sheeps Bridge. We arrived ahead of time, explored and walked around the bride. We ate lunch beside the river and was nearly ready to leave out to stay ahead of scedule when the before mentioned drunken yahoos showed up and decided to provide some entertainment by attemting to cross a very muddy bottom Verde River. We laughed and took vids and pics, but soon turned away when we got the cold stare of distain when we suggested to the group that when they return with the fluids for oil and tranny change, they need to capture all the fluids. Unfortunatley, I'm sure they just dug a hole rite beneath the Jeep and dumped and burried it all.

With that out of the way, we were left to continue on and enjoy the rest of our 1st day in this vast, wide open country. The group here decided to explore our 1st side road of the day as we looked for a supposedly marked (yeh rite) FR-1663 thats cuts between Sheeps Bridge and FR-16 thats leads to the west side of the river at Childs. After a few dead ends and wrong routes, finally found the rite one and we were not dissapointed!!! Turned out to be the hardest trail of the trip with very tight turns among mature juniper trees, moderately difficult rocky stairsteps, and one very off-camber tippy spot with the very real possibility of roll overs. We all manged to make it through fine though, but soon lost a bit of time and fell behind our schedule of making it to the river campsite by dark.

Knowing this and the sun fading fast, we hightailed it to try and make up as much lost time as possible. The road got slightly rougher the closer we got to the river, but nothing terrible. At one of our pit stops, we got passed by a group and hoped they didn't have the same plan as us to camp at the river that night. Finally made it to our resting/camping spot for the night with only 30min or so left of daylight. We were sad to find a serious lack of campsite choices on the West side and the group that had passed us earlier seemed to occupy the only site beside the river. I struck out and failed in my search for another suitable site downstream but was relieved to find upon my return, that the previous group left to find themselfs a better spot. They're loss, our gain!!! The one and only spot and it was a good one. Night would have been perfect if it wasn't for a few party players accross the river from us, but all was well. After plenty of bs'n and story tellin' beside the campfire and a supper of fire grilled hot dogs, bratwurst, and chile we retired to a good nights sleep under the stars and cool night air of a near perfect desert winter's night.

Total Off Highway Miles Traveled: 87.2mi


*To Be Continued!!*

[David C]

Good summary, John. I might add a little bit to the story later, but now, in the very few minutes I have before leaving for work - I will just post some pics.

http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9336&stc=1&d=1170166114

http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9337&stc=1&d=1170166114

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http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9345&stc=1&d=1170166114

[westy]

Was this guy able to drive out of the river here?

http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9345&stc=1&d=1170166114

[Symon623]

Looks like a good time......

Did you guys see the area just below Sheeps Bridge that looked burnt?

Westy, I think thats the rig that they were taliking about that drown? :p

[Washington_XJ]

Hey guys, sorry I didn't make it. I sent Mike the pm a little late, don't think he got it until you guys returned. Looks like a hell of a trip, maybe a little more than I wanted to put my jeep through anyway (the whole water thing scares me).

Xan

[Symon623]

Hey guys, sorry I didn't make it. I sent Mike the pm a little late, don't think he got it until you guys returned. Looks like a hell of a trip, maybe a little more than I wanted to put my jeep through anyway (the whole water thing scares me).

Xan

There was no water crossings on this trip......Those were some DA's up there screwin around. You could potentially cross the Verde at SB or at Childs if you want to go another route but this particular trip posed no water crossings without bridges at least.

Where's the rest of the pics? :D

[mbuckner]

This happened at the sheep bridge ....... he had to be winched out .....

The winch got him to the bank, but then it took 2 TJ's with straps, and a YJ with a winch to get up over the bank on to dry land ...... they got it started ... but water was in the transmission ....... we gave him a jump start and left soon after ......

We did not have to cross any water ... David did go across where some ATV's crossed, but came back ......

This was a great trip .....

Mike

[David C]

Ok, I have a minute now to add a little about the trip. The Jeep that swamped at the Sheeps Bridge was dead in the water at the spot where his headlights are submerged. He had to wade the cold water to get a winch cable. It took the winch plus 2 more Jeeps to pull him over the lip onto shore. His oil looked like chocolate milk and transmission fluid like a strawberry shake. He did get it to start and run though :eek: but shut it down after seeing the fluids. We did not have any required crossings on this trip but I did cross it at the Hot Springs ford after watching 6 ATVs do it with no problem. Here is a quick video clip of that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi54H4gY7_Y. I had to come back across cause the gates to the Childs Power Plant are still there and closed.

As John mentioned, we found a couple of challenging, hardly ever traveled forest roads. FS 1663 turned out to be a fun little shortcut between the bridge and the springs. A couple of washouts to worry me and plenty of desert pinstriping but very cool to travel. It was very hard to find the road - I had to use GPS positioning compared to the topo map to make sure we were on the right track. There were a couple other trails that were a dead end. The other road that required 4x4 was the one that went by the MT ranch that took us from our campsite directly across the river from the public campsite, up to Dugas Rd. We found a nearly perfect place to camp if we ever go up there again. Hard to describe, so I will just say nearly perfect.

Well, coming out along Dugas Rd provided the biggest challenge and a few pucker moments with 2 inches of snow in spots with a 500 foot dropoff and a trail just wide enough for the Jeep. There's nothing like tapping and unseen rock with the rear tire and sliding on the snow towards the dropoff! :eek: Slow and steady with both hands on the wheel! The part of the road I am talking about is shown in the pic closer to the start of this thread. It was treacherous in spots and definitely required 4x4 and some driving skill. We gained about 3600 feet elevation in 6 miles from the river to the top of the Verde Rim. Here is a quick video clip of a part of that road: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLMZrrj1EOo. The views from there were spectacular - we could see the red rocks of Sedona and the San Fransisco Peaks in the distance. Once on top of the rim, we encountered some deep and slick mud which covered our Jeeps top to bottom and had us sliding back and forth down the road. I found that to be fun but I am still finding and washing mud from under my Jeep!

My biggest worry was my fuel situation. I am convinced something is not right and causing excessive bad gas mileage. My fuel light came on as we left the river and we had 6 miles of treacherous uphill wheeling, plus 21 miles back to I-17 and then 6.5 miles to Cordes Jct for fuel. I had already used my spare 5 gallons. I have never tested just how far I can go once that light comes on. But after a little prayer and faith that I was going to make it, I surely did. So that is about 32 miles after the light came on, but it never died so I might be able to get more. At this moment, I have a spare 5 gallons and the light came on yesterday. I wrote down the mileage and I will drive it till it dies. I need to know how far I can go on 'reserve'. Then I will have the fuel filter replaced and the O2 sensor and get it tuned up. I need better gas mileage than what I'm getting.

So this was a great trip! Mike, John and Paul made for great company and were great behind the wheel as well! I really enjoy the longer, exploration trips with a destination as the goal. I hope to do more trips like this in the future. I will post some more pics in the next post.

[David C]

Some more pics:

[GLEN REAMS]

none of thos pictures work david

[Symon623]

Sweet vids David......

The pics are our fav's...red X's :D

[David C]

The pics are not working? They show up when I look at the post.

[GLEN REAMS]

yeah im just getting the red x's too they are sweet :D

[David C]

Well now that is weird. I see the pics but cannot see the red x's you are talking about. I guess I will re-post. Stay tuned.

[GLEN REAMS]

10/4

[David C]

More pics:

http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9423&stc=1&d=1170315950

http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9424&stc=1&d=1170315950

http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9425&stc=1&d=1170315950

http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9426&stc=1&d=1170315950

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http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9428&stc=1&d=1170315950

http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9429&stc=1&d=1170315950

http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9430&stc=1&d=1170315950

http://www.virtualjeepclub.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9431&stc=1&d=1170315950

[GLEN REAMS]

looks good lots of mud!! and i want to go on another snow run before the year is up

[Symon623]

Looks like fun...where'd all the mud come from?

Thanks for sharing.

[David C]

Mud came from Dugas Rd at the top of the Verde Rim about 6300 ft elevation. Melted snow + dirt road = mud bog. I'm still washing it out from underneath!

[97badxj]

Ah come on, mud on a Jeep is super cool!!! Still haven't cleaned mine up yet. Here's a few more pics from my collection.

[mbuckner]

Here is a pic of "Tsunami Dave" ......

[Symon623]

Nice way to wash the Jeep off.

Once you got to the east side of teh river could you see if you could get through to the Childs road to head up to Fossil Creek? Or is it still gated?

[mbuckner]

It was gated and locked .........

[Symon623]

It was gated and locked .........

:mad: Thanks.....How did it look to cross from FR16?

[David C]

I couldn't tell how it was to cross at FR16. I didn't see anyone do it, and could not make an accurate judgement without wading it - but that water is damn cold! So, I can't really say. I can tell you that you should not try to cross at the Sheep's Bridge! :rolleyes:

[Symon623]

When I was at Sheeps Bridge Christmas Eve, we looked about 200 yards downstream of the bridge in the rapids and it looked deep there too. :D

I would like to get over to Childs and head up the Childs road to Fossil Creek road up to Strawberry.