After breakfast of chicken fried steak skillet at Claire's Cafe in Catalina, we drove to Payson on Friday to meet up with Bob at the reconstructed Zane Grey cabin (~4 hours drive).
Rim Country Museums and Zane Grey Cabin
700 S Green Valley Pkwy, Payson, AZ
The trail is about 30 minutes outside Payson via Houston Mesa Road and
Pyeatt Draw Road. When we turned onto the unmaintained Pyeatt Draw
bypass road, it was clear that it would be a crowded weekend as there
were a large number of rock buggies camped there from the "Dark
Wheelers" 4x4 club. Our intended camping spot ~0.2 miles up the
bypass road was still vacant, although the crowds and traffic ruined a
bit of the serenity in the pine forest. There were at least 4 groups
of vehicles in the area including us and including one group doing
night manuevers in the draw with impressive arrays of LED lights. The
forecast which said "numerous rain showers through the weekend" was
correct, so putting up the canopies and rain flys was the first
priority on Friday afternoon.
After a Saturday morning breakfast of either eggs or three fire-roasted Pop Tarts, we headed up the draw for a fun morning of serious wheelin'. The trail is a continuous series of rock steps and boulders (TRR rating ~4). It took us 2.5 hours to go 1.3 miles (yes, you could walk it more quickly). The rocks were dry at the time, so there was good traction for climbing the steps without lockers. When we got to the rock waterfall called "The Filter", we stopped for lunch and waited for other people to come along. There was no chance that any of us were going up "The Filter" or the very aggressive bypass, but it was fun to watch others. We spent about an hour watching "Mall Crawler" (an exocaged Jeep Cherokee) attempt the Filter Bypass on the left side. The group he was with didn't go for winching up the waterfall, but they did winch to extract him from precarious situations. The second "victim" was a short wheelbase Jeep that made it up the Filter Bypass, but popped a tire off the rim just before he made it to the top. They were winching him the rest of the way up when we headed back to camp. As we were leaving, the Dark Wheelers were coming upstream in their rock buggies and bobbed to the max trucks.
This video shows one of the Dark Wheeler buggies climbing "The Filter" and perhaps Mall Crawler readying for a second attempt at the Filter Bypass on the left: www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbwi5a2N1dg Note that we drove around all those big boulders he is driving over.
The Saturday dinner menu included: smokey pulled pork wrap, or fire roasted chicken with rice pilaf, or steamed salmon with green beans and new potatoes - plus marshmallows and roasted apples for dessert. Sunday was cloudy, foggy, rainy with occaisional sleet so we decided to forego the scenic drive on the Rim and head directly for Tucson. Beyond undercarriage scrapes, no vehicles were damaged. John crushed a valve stem that eventually had us changing a tire out on Hwy 87. We had lunch at Los Favoritos Taco Shop in Apache Junction (also endorsed by the Superstition Fire Department), and were back home before 4PM.
P.S. We are thinking of buying Rick's venerable 4Runner (not on this trip) and cutting off all the bodywork to make a rock buggy. :) The 4Runner is (or will be) for sale if you are in the market for a good trail vehicle.
-- Dr. John M. Hill Large Binocular Telescope Observatory jhill@as.arizona.edu University of Arizona phone: (520) 621-3940 933 N Cherry Avenue fax: (520) 626-9333 Tucson, Arizona 85721-0065
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Last modified: Sat May 14 14:57:55 2016