Mark Colby and I met at the Green River Exit on the 91 at a little after 5AM on Saturday the 13th of December. From there we headed East to Florence Jct. AZ to play on some of the best and most scenic trails anywhere. The trip was uneventful and near 3PM we were turning down the dirt road to camp. Ed and Betty who live North West of Phoenix had gotten there just ahead of us and found a great wide open level camp spot. After having dinner and setting around the camp fire a few hours we headed to bed. The next morning Lyle Coren pulled in with 4 of his buddies from the Mesa 4 Wheelers to join us. We had decided to start the week with easy trails and work toward the hard stuff at the end. Lyle said they would lead us to a "moderate" trail to start us off. It turns out their idea of moderate is Upper Ajax which is rated 4.5 on a 1-5 scale. The trail has bypasses for most of the hard stuff but they took the yahoo lines to see if we would follow, sort of a rite of passage I guess. We of course followed and it was a great run. They then said they wanted to run Highway to Hell and headed that way. At the last junction in the road where they went straight Lyle and Eric turned right to go to the end of the trail to walk down and watch. When we got to the start of the trail it took Larry our leader about 20 minutes in his rock buggy to make it up the first water fall. It is steep, slick, and off camber to the right with a high rock wall on the right. With water in the break over point from the rain 2 days earlier it was tough. A TJ and a FJ40 came next with a lot of wheel spin and using a lot of power to make it over. We asked how the rest of the trail was and they said it gets harder later on. Mark and I then parked out of the way and walked up the trail a ways watching and decided it was to early in the week, (day1), to be breaking already and since it was after 3 and Mark doesn't see well at night we begged off. We got back to camp just before dark, Lyle and his buddies left for home and we sat around the camp fire and talked about the day and what to do tomorrow. The next morning we headed to Martinez Canyon and the coke ovens. The trail to the coke ovens is very mild but scenic. About a mile from the ovens a herd of about 20 Havelina or Pinckney hogs, I'm not sure on the name, crossed the road in front of us. We got to the ovens which were built in the late 1800's to make charcoal out of the ironwood trees in the area for the mine smelters. We decided to cross the Gila River and go to Florence for gas and dinner. The river is normally dry unless they need irrigation water in Florence. You guessed it, water was running bank to bank but only hub deep so we crossed without a problem. Once across it is an easy graded road to town. On Tuesday we did Lower and Middle Woodpecker and walked the Highway to Hell trail to see what all the obstacles looked like for ourselves. We figured the first, last, and two middle falls looked iffy and we were going to save it for the next trip. Lower and middle Woodpecker are nice trails with some good frame twisters but with go arounds. Wednesday Mark started his Jeep to warm it up and a couple of minutes later it died and wouldn't fire. We tried all we could think of and then I called Marty at Huntington Jeep and with his help we figured it was his crank position sensor. We loaded it on my trailer and headed to town where we bought a sensor and it fired right off. We would have just drove in for the sensor and brought it back but if that wasn't it we didn't want to make 2 trips. When we got back to camp we took off and did Upper Woodpecker. It is another nice trail with lots of good stuff, big boulders, and frame twisters. When we got off we decided to make sure we could find Axle Alley for Friday since it had been 5 years since we had been here. We got back to camp just before sunset. Thursday Lyle came back and we did Martinez Cabin trail. It is an easy trail in 2 wheel drive but the scenery is well worth the drive with hills covered in cactus, craggy butts, and great skylines. When we got to the cabin we stopped to look around and of course idiots had broken all the windows and trashed the place. From there the Martinez Canyon trail starts. It is a loop trail from the Cottonwood tree lined canyon where the cabin is to the top of the mountain and back. It takes you past the Martinez, Columbia, and Silver Belle mines. The mines are worth the stop to look around. The trail winds up a switchback route to the top of the mountain where you get great views of all the surrounding area all the way to Phoenix about 60 miles away. As you start down there is a spot called the luge which the books said was really bad and the bypass was steeper. As it turns out the luge was washed out and the bypass was no great shakes since we just put it in granny and never touched the brakes going down. After that it was an easy ride back to the cabin. Since we had decided to do box canyon the day we did coke ovens but didn't go that way we figured today would be a good day for that. It is a narrow steep walled canyon but very scenic and easy. We came out on a graded dirt road that took us to Florence for gas and an easy ride to camp. Friday Lyles buddy Eric came back and we headed for Axle Alley. The first obstacle is very broken down from what it was 5 years ago so it was an easy start. You wind around over some small obstacles till you come to a narrow rock v notch with high walls and as you get to the top a steep climb out. When you climb out you make a right turn to a sheer rock fall that is hard to climb on foot in front of you. The winch lines came out and up and over we went. It seems that from 5 years ago the easy stuff is easier or gone and the hard stuff is harder. We worked our way along to the last obstacle which is a waterfall that requires winching out. there is nothing to attach a winch line to there. 5 years ago they had a rig go to the end to attach to and nothing had been put in for that since. I broke out my Pull Pal and planted it at the top and hooked Marks line to it. Up and over one at a time with no problems. Since we had lunch at the top and it was early we did Lower Ajax and some other easy washes to wind down before going back to camp. Saturday morning we headed home thinking and talking about the trip on the radio and planning for our next trip in two weeks to Johnson Valley and the Hammers. We decided as trips go this was up there as one of the best and since it is no farther than the Rubicon from home we should do it more often. It is sure a shame that some of my club members couldn't have come on this trip as they would have had a ball. There is everything from mild to wild there and except for Axle Alley and Highway to Hell most of the hard stuff has bypasses. .

Frank Hayes KE6RDG
President Orange County 4-Play
Hayes Ent. custom Jeep work
http://hayesentjeep.com