Arizona Land Cruiser Club Association

Trip Report for Sept. 11, 2004. Literally "around" Jerome Arizona.Two parts: Mingus Mountain then Smiley Rock. Both have sections that are part of the Great Western Trail.

We started at 3500 ft. in Cottonwood and end up over 7000 ft. 20 miles later. The group of 5 Cruisers briefly took over the parking lot at the Maverick Gas Station at West Mingus Ave. and 89A in Cottonwood.

We were:
'97 LX450 Randy, Linda, Richard Drwinga trip leaders.
'96 FZJ80 Walt Philips with Tammy and James
'94 FZJ80 Brian Brumfield
'94 FZJ80 Tim Rusert
'93 FJ80 Brad and Alice Musil, tail gunners for the day.

We left at 9:25 after the gassing up, checking out the latest mods on the vehicles, and holding the drivers meeting. Dirt was only a mile away, so we aired down there. This section is 2.5 rating on our 5 pt. scale, only for pucker factor, not technically difficult. This is a shelf road, with long stretches of no turn outs and difficult passing. Very scenic, 9 out of 10 for scenic in book 2.Mingus Mountain is Trail #26 in "Guide to Arizona Backroads & 4WD Trails", 19 miles off pavement, book says 2-3 hours, "moderate" AND Mingus Mountain is Trail #NE 18 in "Backcountry Adventures Arizona", 16.6 miles, 2.5 hours, 5 out of 10 difficulty.

Very shortly after hitting the dirt just past the Cottonwood Airport we were climbing fast. About 5 miles into the trail we were well up in elevation. We stopped at the ruins of the Copper Chief mine, which include terraced cement foundations from what we guessed was the mill. There are other structures and mines along the road. Trail 493 and then Trail 413 did not really live up to their reputation for being all that scary. Very beautiful scenery and panoramic views of the Verde Valley, but not scary. It was a shelf road, with a few
rocky patches, but the only interesting driving occurred when a pickup truck came at us from the other way. He backed up to a slightly wider spot, and eased his truck onto the uphill shoulder. We edged around on the down hill side. No problem, at least 6" to spare!

About 2 hours later, we were at the midway point and our lunch stop. This was at highway 89A at the summit west of Jerome, near Potato Patch campground at 7024 ft. elevation. There were vault toilets and picnic tables: a good place for lunch and planning the afternoon. We headed out at around 12:30 for the second, more exciting trail of the day.

Smiley Rock is Trail #25 in "Guide to Arizona Backroads & 4WD Trails".23 miles off pavement, book says 4 hours off highway, we were about 3.5 hours. This route goes clockwise around the Woodchute Wilderness, coming back into Jerome on Perkinsville Rd. This is "difficult" in the book, I judge about 4 miles to be ~3.0-3.5 on our rating scale. This is in a canyon bottom rock crawling as you can see from the pictures. Very scenic at the start, and lots of shade in the canyon bottom. A few obstacles needed some spotting, and a few rock sliders did their job - sliding on the rocks!

We found the trails namesake at around 2:00. Smiley Rock itself is a 3' boulder with a happy face imprinted by nature. This was near the end of the hard stuff and the group took a short break to check out Smiley, compare notes on air compressors, and try to figure out what the gasoline smell was. Did someone pickup a leak on the rocks? No - it was the recirculated gas going back into the tank, heating it up, and causing excess pressure to build up in the tank. At slow speeds, the engine compartment gets hotter due to low airflow. You are not using that much gas, and so more of the gas just makes the loop in the
system, picking up heat in the engine compartment and taking it back to the tank. Vapor pressure builds until it starts coming out at the charcoal canister or the gas cap.

We left Martin Canyon and got out onto the flat land pretty quickly. The going was faster, but watch out for the speed bumps! We met the old railroad grade that goes from Chino Valley to Jerome. This is the United Verde & Pacific RR (ref. "4 Wheel Drive and Back Roads of Yavapai County, Arizona" by Luis and Paula Vega), which it Fr 318A. The trails meet at a transformer station in the middle of nowhere. Kind of fun, kind of spooky - we stopped and got out hear. You could hear the power lines buzzing and popping. Then someone noticed that the ARB bumpers were resonating! Touch them lightly and you could feel them vibrating due to the electromagnetic fields. Having left our lead underwear at home, we decided to move on. Left turn goes to Chino Valley, we went right to Jerome.

Faster road now as it follows the rail road - a few rocky patches and pretty dusty. There is a stop sign as this meets Perkinsville Rd. Bearing left on to Jerome. We stopped at the top of a hill a couple miles from Jerome to take in the view of the Verde, Jerome, and the
mines around the town. We could see a fire far off to the north.

The Gold King Mine and Museum is near the end of this trail. Very cool spot. We were surprised to find the annual gathering of the Arizona Volkswagen CLub parked in the dirt lot in front of the Museum. Lots of vans and bugs, and folks having a good old time. The "museum" is mostly outside - old cars, trucks, fire trucks, mining equipment, working timber saws (diesel, belt drive with 4' circular blades) - cool old dude named Don runs it. The fire breathing dragon got a spark plug upgrade, and does not breathe fire anymore. Bummer, but Don says it's better for the engine. He did fire up Big Bertha a couple of times while we were there. This is a 3 cylinder, 10,000 cubic inch engine. 14" pistons with a 22" stroke. About 12 feet tall. Starts up with 100 PSI of compressed air and runs on propane. After it gets going (which is impressive enough), Don shuts it down and it starts backfiring. He blows off a warning whistle first - then BANG! chug chug BANG! BANG! The back fire sounds like a cannon shot.

And that was the end of this day of great wheeling in Arizona!