Arizona Land Cruiser Club Association

Date: January 26, 2005

Run: Box Canyon / Coke Ovens in the Florence area

Trip leader: Randy Drwinga with Linda and Richard in a '97 LX450
Members:
Walt Phillips with Tammi and James in a '96 FZJ80
Chip U'Ren in his '97 FZJ80
Stacy Logan in his Jeep
Tim Rusert in his '94 FJZ80
Steve Willoughby with Kurt Rollins in his '88 FJ60

We met at 9:00am at the Chevron in Florence (near the prison). A large group of Land Rovers (AZLRO) also met at the same time and place, to do the same run! Rain was threatening, but it turned out ot be a great run. We also saw many motorcycles and quads throughout the day. The landscape was beautiful - the desert is really liking all this rain lately. Even the rocks in Box Canyon were the greenest we could remember. The trail is about a 3.0, and surprisingly stacked up through Box Canyon considering the rains. A great side benefit was the low dust levels we enjoyed compared to a typical day near Florence Junction.

We turned off towards Martinez, then south towards the river and the Coke Ovens. We were climbing one of the shelf roads when we got a bit of hail! It soon passed. We got sidetracked approaching the Coke Ovens - twice. Missed two turns that would have put us on the loop by the Ovens. One was at the top of a ridge about two miles from the ovens - we should have turned right along the ridge line. The second was another right turn within a mile of the Coke Ovens. The left turn put us on Battle-ax, and we took it because it showed up on the GPS as a "road" and look more well traveled. One of the few times the "rule of thumb" for trail finding has let me down. Instead we ended up on Battle-ax Trail heading SE then East..

We paused for lunch in an offshoot of Battle-ax, then turned around and got back on trail. We were at the Ovens a short time later, meeting up with the Land Rovers again. We headed out NW, the Rovers went the way we had come in (NE). Met them again as the loop came back around. We all got slowed down behind a stock Durango which was struggling on the steps coming back out. Our group split when we got to Mineral Mt.. Road A couple folks went in search of Mexican food in Florence, heading back through Box Canyon. The rest went north to find pavement along Mineral Mt. Road. We were about 7 hours on the road.