Battle Axe Mountain

We took a boonie trip out to Battle Axe Mountain on Friday. It was a crisp, sunny day, mid-sixties, little wind, a clear blue sky. Bill loaded up the Cruiser with Al, Glo, Tom and me and Chuy of course, snuggled in my arms. It's only a ten mile trip down 177 to the turn-off and we got out roughly eight to ten miles before the road disintegrated and we had to turn around.

Battle Axe is a monolithic slab of a mountain at the end of a box canyon (Walnut Canyon) in the White Wilderness in eastern Pinal County. The odd part is that it's far enough away from the main traveled highways that it is not even visible from the road and you feel like you have 'discovered' it when you get there. It is a picture taking opportunity! I thought the mountains and crags on this road were just about as pretty as anything we'd seen in Utah on our way to Sturgis last summer. Everywhere you looked there was another mountain to take a picture of. What joy!

While Uncle Al picked his way up a streambed looking for rocks at the first stop, Bill chose to hike nearly to the top of the first peak while Glo and Tom and Chuy and I climbed up the road looking for more adventure. We were passed by four retired gentlemen on four wheelers also rock collecting.

At the second stop, the Walnut Canyon ends with Battle Axe closing its end off and the road veered sharply up another mountain. That, in turn, opened more vistas on the southwestern side and we shot more videos. Strangely, even though we were probably about four thousand feet high, all the ocotillo were fully in bud here, and we even found flowers on one. None of the ocotillo in Superior or down in Casa Grande are budded out yet. It was like this part of the Sonoran Desert had its own climate control. The third stop took us nearly to the Gila River riverbed, we were just a few miles north of it, but the road petered out into sandy streambeds and the 'best way' was turning into too steep and bouldery a passage, so we had to know when to say "No!" and turn around. We hadn't retraced our footsteps very long when we came about six more four wheelers who were trying to figure out which way to go. We waved. They waved, looking doubtful. They likely figured they had this wilderness all to themselves and here comes a SUV stuffed with sightseers driving out, waving at them. Ya never know who you'll meet in the desert.

Anyway, it was a good day. We didn't pick up all that many rocks but we sure took a lot of pictures and discovering new areas is one of the best parts of Boonie Tooling!