Peralta boondocking, Gold Canyon AZ

Busy day.  We couldn't get another night at the SP so we went out scouting early morning.  I had noticed a boondock site on an app up this dead end road near a trailhead.  First to scout it and see if there were any sites I wanted to bring the trailer into.  There was!  Two even!  Back to the park to get the trailer and back up the road.  Of course our first choice was all the way up the road.  I did see a coyote run off the road and out of sight before Carlene could see it.  We had to call the state to get a permit to camp up here.  A whopping $20 for the year!  This place is actually just on the opposite side of the Superstition Mountain from the SP we stayed at.

Got it up here.  Yup, bent a jack, probably in one of the wash crossings.  That'll offset the free site just a bit.  But it's so beautiful and quiet and peaceful up here.  We are noticing that people come up here after dark, it's only 8:00 PM so we'll see how late they come up.

The trailhead parking at the end of the road is less than a half mile.  We walked up and went up a trail for 1.5 miles.  It was late afternoon so we didn't want to go too far.  Came back for a bit of happy hour and dinner.

A shot from 2 days ago, that's Tortilla Flat down in the valley

That's the camper to the right of center

The view out the camper door

Lost Dutchman 2

We hiked part way up the Flatiron Mountain on the Siphon Draw Trail.  The official trail is 2 mi. long climbing 1000' followed by an unofficial and unmaintained trail in the wilderness area that is another mile with another 2000' climb.  We were halfway up the unofficial trail when we came to what I call the waterslide.  It is a steep section of relatively smooth rock that is a waterfall when the rains put much water in the flow.  Now it is just a 1' wide trickle.  Neither of us care for that kind of exposure on smooth rock to go up and even less to come back down.  So we turned around after going 1/3 of the section.  There was a side canyon with another stream coming from a small pool at the base of a cliff.  Plenty cold water!

Later after taking Cal for a walk we went exploring in the truck.  We wanted to find some boondock camping and while high on the mountain I had spied some scattered campers on a dirt road out the other side of camp.  Well, that was indeed some dispersed camping but the road had such huge holes and gullies that we didn't care to drive the camper up there.  The camping was nicely remote, just what we wanted, but not quite accessible.  This is a long trailer to haul up such a road.  I'd probably tear off a rear stabilizer jack in one of those tank traps.

Lost Dutchman SP, Apache Jct. AZ

We left Ben Avery Shooting Facility shortly before noon.  It took a few hours to pack everything, go get fuel and groceries.  We assumed that we probably would be in a more remote place so we wanted to to the advantage of a good grocery store. 
It was well under 2 hours to get to Apache Junction and the Lost Dutchman State Park.  We knew they didn't have a site available so we are in the overflow parking.  No hookups, just a piece of paved parking lot with other campers on both sides. 
The basic plan was to park here and scout out some boondock camp nearby.  We found one but it is full.  "Full" in a boondock setting means there isn't a sufficiently large place that is level enough to suit us.  So we'll probably stay another night and go hiking tomorrow.  Then head down the road to where we know there are more campgrounds and established boondock camp areas.
This afternoon we drove up Rt 88 to Tortilla Flat.  Tortilla Flat is a 5 building town way out in the middle of nowhere.  Quaint and touristy.  It originally was where the Lost Dutchman built a saloon and restaurant because he liked good food and had to have something to drink with it.  This from the proceeds of his Lost Dutchman Mine, the location of which is still a mystery.  They had a pretty good sounding band playing in the outdoor bar.
Rt 88 is a classic steep winding mountain road with incredible scenery.
Back at camp we had some munchies and went for a walk as the sun set.  We was a rabbit (Cal didn't notice) and later a great horned owl (looking for that rabbit) perched on top of a big Saguaro.  We also met a couple on a motorcycle from Nova Scotia.  I commented that that was quite a ride!  She admitted that they cheated a bit; they drove to Macon GA and put their truck and trailer in storage and rode out from there.  Now that's a good way to get out of the frozen north on a motorcycle!  They have a bike trailer which folds out to a tent up off the ground.  A friend has one of those, they look pretty cool.  Let's see if he's reading the blog and sees that.

Superstition Mountains

Canyon Lake

An owl on a cactus

Superstition at sunset

Phoenix 11, close of Winter Range

Last day of Winter Range.  The day started with the Top Gun Shootoff, the top 16 men and women of the match get together and shoot a series of one-on-one elimination matches until there is one left, the Top Gun.  It has an award for the winner but has no bearing on the main match results.  It is still fun because this is head to head for 28 shots with an overlapping pair of falling plates to determine the winner.  Sometimes the final shots are so close that the falling plates will hit each other as they fall.  That didn't happen today but some were pretty close.

After that was the awards ceremony that took a couple hours.  I didn't expect anything and got just that.  After the ceremony the MA & NH folks and Half-A-Hand Henri gathered at our camper for some munchies before heading off for our different ways home.

So ends Winter Range 2020.  Lots of talk about next year; it'll be the 30th Winter Range and they will begin planning it next week!

There were 660 actual participants, from as far as Finland and Australia.  Of those 37 shot the match clean, meaning no misses or procedural errors.  120 volunteers worked on the side events plus a core of 41 AZ Rangers who work hard for a week or more to set up and tear down.  125 shot in the Wild Bunch match.

For the cowboys back home who will recognize some of the winners here is  a list of New Englanders who placed and the category:

Yankee 7th Frontier Cartridge

Lou Graham 3rd Ladies Frontier Cartridge Gunfighter (LFCGF)

Half-A-Hand Henri 1st LFCGF

Dead Head 7th FCGF

Six Gun Schwaby 2nd Duelist (SD)

Matchlock 10th Sr Duelist 

Hawkeye Kid 2nd SD

Grazer 1st SD

Hawley McCoy 7th Ladies Sr

Renegade Roper 1st Ladies Wrangler

Left to Right: Mad Cat With a Gun (Norway) & Renegade Roper (NY)

L>R: Texas Tiger (TX) & Whirlwind Wendy (CA)

Note the two blue targets; they overlap when they fall so you know which fell first

Inside the main tent during awards

One of the big horse trailers here.  Horses in the back & living quarters in front.  This was not the biggest one we saw!  These were not for the mounted shooting, I don't know what event was running today.

This video is from the Men's final.  The guy who wins it is Whistling Will from BC Canada.  He also was the top overall winner of Winter Range.  His speed is incredible!