Saddle Mountain
I was boondocking west of Phoenix, having discovered an area of sparsely camped upon scenic terrain at the end of a paved road. But my first attempt at camping at resulted in me being by a shooting area I couldn’t easily get away from owing to an unexpected flat tire. It was time to fix both of those problems. Join me on the nail biting ride back to Phoenix!
I had packed everything up (motor cycle never even came off the rack owing to the flat). A second pump up test of my tire confirmed that the leak was slow. I should theoretically make it all the way back to Phoenix without going flat again. In case the tire went flat quicker than expected, I could stop at the side of the road and pump it up again. If the tire went flat too quickly, I’d just swap it out for the spare. Pumping up the tire the rest of the way after dropping it from the jack, I wasted no time leaving my spot. I was fortunate that I was only a couple of minutes off the pavement. I’m usually not too adventurous the first time I’m in an area and that caution paid off this time.
I had two stops planned along the way to check the tire before I hit Interstate 10 and the last 20 klicks into Phoenix to the closest Big O Tire shop. I had slightly over-inflated the tire, expecting it to go down to ‘normal’ pretty quick. My first check gave me 55 psi, the normal inflation pressure. So far, so good – that rate of drop I could handle. My second check of the tire as I got closer to the Interstate surprised me, the tire was still at 55 psi. It seems the leak had sealed itself up from driving/warming up the tire. Modern tire technology is wonderful; these things are way tougher than most people give them credit for. But I still continued straight to the tire shop, getting a two hour estimate for my repair. That wasn’t quite enough time to go have lunch somewhere, but I did tour through the ‘burb of Goodyear a bit to see what I could see in a two hour walk of the area.
Nice park. Even had water fountains.
I wandered down one of the main streets heading away from the tire shop. The scene was your typical commercial district with various stores surrounded by large parking lots. I was in a more recently constructed area, you can see that an effort has been made to put in sidewalks. It’s better than nothing, but pedestrians are an afterthought in terms of transportation. I hit the Harbor Freight along the way, just to see what one is like since I’d never been in one. It is definitely more of a tool and automotive store as compared to a Home Depot that has so much other stuff. I then visited the Society of St. Vincent De Paul Thrift Store, which turned out to be pretty good. I have occasionally picked up something useful for the RV at these stores, but this time I was content to see what interesting ‘collectables’ the store was reselling. You can make money reselling stuff from thrift stores sometimes, but you either have to get lucky and/or work your ass off to make any real money.
 Worth of a ’55 Indy mug? |
 Original owner says ‘rare, $75’ |
 Thrift store says ‘$5’. Asking price on Ebay $15. |
What about a speed pillow?
Having decided for sure I wasn’t going to hit one of the eateries in the area as none of them looked promising, I headed into the local housing suburb, to visit a little park I could hang out in for my remaining wait time. It can be amusing to see how the local politics bleed out in how things are done in a neighborhood. I’m sure sometime in the past there was a long discussion about what to call the ‘speed bumps’ in order to make them more palatable to the car centric culture of the area.
I wandered back over to Big O to find my tire was done. I had asked them to keep the tire holing culprit as I was curious as to what had actually made the hole. The thing that looked like a shotgun shell was actually a roofing nail. The ‘washer’ end is this big probably for putting metal roofing down – you need a big head to keep the metal from tearing through the nail in strong winds. I’d never seen one of this type before, I’m used to the ones with the rubber grommet on them. Thinking about it further, I could see those not working well down here in the summer heat. I was happy my flat was repaired. I’d just have to monitor the tire for a bit to make sure the repair took. At least it didn’t cost me anything, thanks to my free repair service that came with the Big O tires when I purchased them.
Parque de Pa
After a quick lunch in the RV, I returned to my previous area, this time heading past the end of the pavement a bit where the road jogs north then continues west again. When I first arrived in the area, it looked to me that the road just goes out to nowhere. Subsequent exploration revealed that the road is a shortcut to a sparsely inhabited farming area to the west. The road keeps you from having to go around to the north of Saddle Mountain if you are coming from the east or southeast. There are not a lot of people coming from that direction, so the gravel road gets little traffic.
Dobbins Rd East spot
I turned at the first cart path going off north towards the hills. This path is an ATV trail that is used a bit on the weekends. I had scouted a spot away from the trail a bit, but still the passing ATV traffic was minimal. The trail was over mostly flat terrain following a ridge top – most RVs could make it a ways down the road. There were several of these roads, each following a ridge top. The second one past where I had turned had an RV the previous week, he was the only one I saw in the immediate area the whole time I was there. Some people like to camp a bit further down the gravel road, there are other spots you can hide in little valleys or branches leading to flat spots. There is a lot of boondocking with only a few people in the area – just the combination I was looking for.
The spot I had picked was not bad, but got a bit of ATV traffic being part of a loop trail. The hills were also a little further away, so the hiking was not the greatest. I did have a couple of unusual things close by. The first one was a bit of unexpected water, what I’ll call a “mini-tank”. The rains early in the winter season had left things a bit wetter, resulting in some lush grass. There was no water at any of the catchment basins, just green grass. The washes sometimes drop over some hard rocks leaving bowls that can hold water. They were usually empty except for one little bowel I found on my hike to the big hill a ways away from my camp. I had followed some cow trails down into the wash – they tend to go where there is water. It is nice to be able to collect some water, even non-potable is useful for cleaning windows or toilet duty.
The second thing I encountered was something new to me. It looked like someone had collected bits of tin and/or lead together and had smelted some little piles. There were several scattered about an area by a camp that looked to not have been used in the last year. I’m pretty sure they were not smelting anything, rather remelting scrap. I didn’t see any evidence of a furnace, but who knows what they hauled in and out of their camping spot. I’m going to assume this activity was part of some sort of hobby, but I have no idea beyond that.
Looking towards Saddle Mountain
I hiked one day over to the most substantial hill of the area, the tallest peak between me and the Saddle Mountains. This hill is 1/10th the size of Saddle Mountain, making it an easy climb to the top. There are sheer cliffs near the top – I had to pick the one side that had only a bit of a steep rock scramble to get to the top. I’m not as agile as I used to be so I was happy to be able to get to the top and admire the view.
I also rode around with the Grom, looking for boondocking spots further afield and just exploring beyond the immediate area. This was when I found out that the gravel road I had gone down to get to my turnoff does continue back into civilization. At night, I could see just a few faint lights in that direction so I knew there had to be something out there. It turns out there is a vast area of farmland, some of which is abandoned, mixed in with a small number of residences. I checked out one spot on the edge of the farming that had promise for boondocking. One problem: it was occupied by and abandoned boat. This was the most substantial boat I’d found to date left behind.
80’s tech audio system
It wasn’t trashed inside (yet), at this point it is possible you could still salvage a boat with full kitchen facilities and a bathroom, although I would upgrade most of it from its 80’s vintage equipment. The spot was all treed, with a large pond that was just mud at the time. I ended up not marking it as a potential boondocking spot as I could hear people talking nearby. I am guessing there was some activity going on on the farmland on the other side of the trees, but that land looked abandoned to me, so I don’t know what was going on. At any rate, I was far from the mountains there, and I had direct evidence that solitude was not going be a thing there so nix on the potential boondocking.
The east road around Saddle Mountains
My most ambitious ride with the Grom was to travel around the east side of Saddle Mountain, to the north end where the main boondocking is around here. I had it in my head that I might circumnavigate the mountain if the roads were good. They were not. I had some really steep V-washes to go through that I just had enough traction to climb out of. Getting to where the boondocking started, I decided to change plans and go back down to the paved road on the north side of Saddle Mountain, I’d be circumnavigating the Palo Verde Hills to the east instead to get back to my camp a much longer route, mostly paved. I just didn’t feel like riding all that rough road back to my camp. Taking the longer smoother route had the side benefits of being able to fill up my gas tank along the way, and being able to stop and take a look at Palo Verde Nuclear plant, from a distance of course.
Palo Verde Nuclear plant seen from the main road
My spot for the week had been pretty good, but it was time to head into town to resupply. I was going to reposition a bit further to the west where I would be closer to the hills for some better hiking and views from my rig. I’d also be in an area with a ton of chalcedony rocks. See you there!
