Thursday February 20, 2014 Burro Creek Road Camp Two, AZ.
I’m camped on the upper part of Burro Creek Road
I opened one eye this morning around 8:30AM and decided I was too comfortable to get up yet, so I didn’t.
Around 9:30 the sun was starting to warm things up just a little so I got things together and got it going for the day. I checked the van’s water and oil and air and all was ok, so I was off, up the road, headed towards Bagdad, but didn’t plan to end up there today.
Instead, I planned to explore Burro Creek Road to it’s end and try to find a camp somewhere back there.
I left my last nights camp and headed up Road 93 and this is what it looked like.
The road had just been graded not too long ago and some places there were some lose rocks. Mostly one needs good tires to go on these roads, maybe even more than one needs four wheel drive which I didn’t need on this road.
Continuing on Road 93 and starting to go down to the Burro Creek area.
The maps show some backed up water in this area, so I was hoping for some place to kayak. But I wasn’t too disappointed when this is the only water I found when I crossed over Burro Creek. I never get my hopes up for kayaking water in the dessert, but sometimes it works out. There are large areas of water here, but the access to those areas are blocked by a fence, which is the case a lot in these desert areas.
Burro Creek Road to the end
Shorty after crossing Burro Creek, I had to open and close a gate, then I turned off the main road onto the end of Burro Creek Road. At this point I put the van in four wheel low range, mostly just so I could go slow and enjoy the road, without burning up my clutch.
This was a working wind mill where I stopped for a bit for a bite to eat.
I slowly made my way all the way up to the end of Burro Creek Road where there were several camp sites. I stopped for a bit and enjoyed the spot. Went for a real short walk around the area, close in to the van.
This is the camp area near the end of Burro Creek Road. There were quite a few places to primitive camp in this area.
Burro Creek Camp for the night
On the way to the end of the road, I had passed a gate in the fence that goes all along the creek side of the road, blocking access. The gate had a sign that said to keep the gate closed, so I wanted to go back and check it out for a place to camp for the night. It’s the only gate on the road with a sign like that, so it’s easy to find.
I went through the gate and closed it, of course. I followed the road to about 100 yards short of Burro Creek.
This last part was the only rough part of the road. This part of the road was crossing a part of the high water creek bed.
The road ended at a fairly nice camp spot, so I thought I’d stay the night.
I walked down to check out Burro Creek. No place to kayak, but still interesting. Looking down steam. It looked like more lake-ish type water down the stream as far as I could see. More work then I wanted to do packing my boat down there.
Burro Creek, looking up stream.
When I got back from that little walk I took a little nap and remembered I read a sign that said no camping closer than one quarter mile of water, so I decided I better move back closer to the gate I came through.
I decided to walk back down the road to check out a place to camp for the night.
I walked back about a half mile or so and was walking through this tree area, which looked like it had some nice places to camp.
Monsters Battle
I made my way down through the trees and ran into these two old dead Carasarouses.
They were laying on their backs all torn up. It must have been quite a battle. :O)
Here’s one of them.
And the other one. What could of beat these things up so bad? :O)
Getting my imagination back under control I realized I better pay attention, because I’m now close to feeling lost as most of this area looks a lot alike, even dirt roads, which there are quite few, going this way and that way.
I decided it would be a good idea to start back tracking to find the road back to my van by the creek. When I got to the road, I thought the van was on, I looked for my foot prints, but didn’t see any? Hummmm? But, there were my van tire prints, so this must be the road. I only traveled about twenty feet when I picked up my foot prints from walking out this way. That’s always a relief.
It wasn’t long before I was back at the van for a nap. I didn’t want to leave this camp site until later, as the sun would be going down, which was better for the new camp site as it was more in the sun.
I wanted to walk down the the creek one more time before I left to have another look around.
This is a picture of the Burro Creek, with me in it. :O)
When I returned to the van from that little walk, I rested up for a bit, then moved over to the tree area, which is near the closed gate.
This is my camp for the night, where I am now writing this, but it is a bit dark.
This is the sunset from my camp and the last picture of the day.
Tomorrow’s Plans
My plan is to work my way back to the main road and up to Bagdad, where I will look around and try to post these blogs at the library. I may or may not stay the night up in that area, depending what I find? I’m hoping to find another campsite out on a little road there, somewhere?
The day went well.