Roaming around the desert

[pyrotyro]

Hey all,

Just wanted to share our southwest tour. So we happened to find ourselves with a fantastic opportunity, about 3 months off between life events, and decided to do some traveling! The plan has always been changing, but the idea was to spend the first month building a basic camp trailer and then the next 2 traveling around the desert! It’s gone mostly as we wanted, of course the building took longer than expected, but we got er done and took off!

Right before departure, after (mostly) finishing the trailer that morning and then packing up and making a run for it!





The trailer build can be found here

https://www.overlandbound.com/forums/threads/roam-1.11758/

More to come!


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[pyrotyro]

Day 1

We cruised late into the evening about three hours from SW CO to White Mesa, NM. Setup camp in the dark and hit the hay. The next day we awoke to a lovely backdrop of white and red soils and went to check out the trail system.







Awesome place, sweet trails! Then we took off and resupplied in ABQ and headed about two hours south to San Lorenzo canyon, also arriving in the dark.









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[pyrotyro]

Day 2

Woke up in our little arroyo, and explored around a little.



Then headed back through and played in some of the tight areas...







Whoops



Then we headed south to Truth or Consequences for fuel, and then headed west through the southern portion of Gila NF to city of rocks.









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[Cullen Powers]

Cool shots, looks like some nice spots to drive and camp.

 

[pyrotyro]

Cool shots, looks like some nice spots to drive and camp.

Thank you! It’s been a blast, the desert is very mysterious and fun to explore!


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[pyrotyro]

Day 3

Got up and played around in the rocks some more







Then packed it up and headed further west. Camped at the Hot Well dunes. A random hot spring out in the middle of the Arizona desert.



No photos of the pool, we just soaked and watched the sunset before enjoying some incredible stars...


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[pyrotyro]

Day 4

We got up with the sun and whipped up some breakfast burritos before breaking camp. We had planned to drive to a trail system on the top of Mt Graham nearby, but realized on our drive over that it was under a seasonal closure... so we sadly had to skip that and we headed south to the Dragoon mountains on the other side of the interstate.

Lots of pull outs off the forest service road, so we found one tucked back by the rock and made an early camp.



That afternoon, while checking the weather in the area, I discovered a 3 day storm blowing up from Mexico. Unexpected for sure, kinda put a dampener on our plans. So we made a plan to hit the trails in the morning and break camp before the rain hit.









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[pyrotyro]

Day 5

Well that almost worked.



The good news is we got camp picked up before the rain. Then we scurried north to Tucson, where we celebrated Valentine’s Day at In n Out.



Next we went to the west side of town where there is a little slice of blm land, a boondockers paradise!



So now we are chillin under the awning and tomorrow will be our first down day. Maybe hit a rec center in town, resupply, hangout. Then hit some trails around here Friday if the rain lets up!




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[Road]

Nicely done, cool to see you updating daily. . . I'm envious!

 

[HappyOurOverlanding]

Day 5

Well that almost worked.

View attachment 47958

The good news is we got camp picked up before the rain. Then we scurried north to Tucson, where we celebrated Valentine’s Day at In n Out.

View attachment 47962

Next we went to the west side of town where there is a little slice of blm land, a boondockers paradise!

View attachment 47959

So now we are chillin under the awning and tomorrow will be our first down day. Maybe hit a rec center in town, resupply, hangout. Then hit some trails around here Friday if the rain lets up!




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Nice pictorial of your trip. Looks like you had a fun adventure. Looking forward to seeing more.

 

[cdunn334]

Jelous, that looks great!

 

[pyrotyro]

Nicely done, cool to see you updating daily. . . I'm envious!

I’ll do my best to keep it up to date, we will be out of service frequently though. That’s half the fun ;) Thanks for the support!

Nice pictorial of your trip. Looks like you had a fun adventure. Looking forward to seeing more.

Thank you! It’s been like living a dream, I’ll keep posting!

Jelous, that looks great!

It sure is! Challenging, but very rewarding...



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[Road]

I’ll do my best to keep it up to date, we will be out of service frequently though. That’s half the fun ;) Thanks for the support!

Thank you! It’s been like living a dream, I’ll keep posting!

It sure is! Challenging, but very rewarding...

Ha - no worries on keeping it up to date daily, mate - I know how it gets. I finished a 16 week/12,500 mile trip recently and if I didn't post to Insta daily, some of my followers messaged with concern, even tho I had posted that I'd be off-grid and out of service area for days at a time.

Wicked good fun, isn't it, to roam a bit and settle into a good healthy outdoor lifestyle. I just love it.

Keep up the great work; you've got fans now!

Wishing you dry roads and open skies,

Road

 

[Kent R]

Awesome!

 

[pyrotyro]

Ha - no worries on keeping it up to date daily, mate - I know how it gets. I finished a 16 week/12,500 mile trip recently and if I didn't post to Insta daily, some of my followers messaged with concern, even tho I had posted that I'd be off-grid and out of service area for days at a time.

Wicked good fun, isn't it, to roam a bit and settle into a good healthy outdoor lifestyle. I just love it.

Keep up the great work; you've got fans now!

Wishing you dry roads and open skies,

Road

Thanks, I appreciate that!

Awesome!

:D

Day 6

Laid low, got wet. Made a video about our first week, here it is!

 

[HappyOurOverlanding]

Nice recap vid. You did a great job on the trailer build. [emoji41]

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[pyrotyro]

Nice recap vid. You did a great job on the trailer build. [emoji41]

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Thank you very much!

Day 7

Forecast showed cloudy again, but little rain. So Lauren tried to ride...

Didn’t go well... so it was much like the previous day. Lay low, hang out at starbucks, in the Jeep, at camp. Then right at sunset the clouds broke for a minute, then continued to rain lol

We drank some moonshine, and hit the sack.


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[pyrotyro]

Day 8

Today was gorgeous, a wonderful change from the gloom. The sun burnt off the clouds quick this morning and we wasted no time hitting the trails.

Trails are awesome around Tucson! After a sufficient endorphin fix we headed back to camp and packed it all up. Ate some lunch and headed west, about 2 hours to Ajo. Straight to the wildlife preserve office to try to land a permit for an off-road trail all the way to Yuma.... but they’re not open on weekends!? We would consider waiting until Monday, however that’s a holiday, so it would be Tuesday. Unfortunately it’s not looking like it’s going to happen. So we will have to head to Yuma on pavement, unfortunately.

Anyways, headed out into the desert as planned and found us some blm heaven. Made some dinner and watched the sunset next to a little fire

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[pyrotyro]

Day 9

Not much to show from this day. We got up, did a quick sandbag workout and made breakfast burritos before taking off for the day. We drove the pavement to Yuma and made a pit stop in El Centro, CA to have lunch with some of Lauren’s family.

Since we missed out on a two day off road excursion, I asked around for an off road route in SoCal. Luckily somebody on Instagram helped me out (thanks overlandx!!)with a route through Anza Borrego state park. So we pulled off the interstate at Ocotillo and filled up with very expensive gas (welcome to CA!) and headed for the desert.

Headed into “canyon sin nombre” at dusk

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[pyrotyro]

Day 10

Didn’t get much sleep as we were pummeled by wind all night, even hiding out in a canyon. As anybody whose done a windy night in an rtt knows, they’re just isn’t much rest. But we survived and hit a quick breakfast to get on our way through the state park. We had an awesome drive through canyons, washes, open desert and mountains!

A few tight places with the trailer

But had a blast and got to check out a slot canyon. Made camp that night in “hawk canyon” and got out of the wind, which was nice.

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