Took this along Section 5 of the Arizona Backcountry Discovery Route between Globe and Young.
Tonto National Forest, Arizona
- Thread starter Dean
- Start date
Took this along Section 5 of the Arizona Backcountry Discovery Route between Globe and Young.
Same section, just a few more miles down the road. Got real intense for a few brief sections. Mostly washouts coming down off the higher ridge-line.
The hitch looks really close to the ground! Nice pictures.
Same section, just a few more miles down the road. Got real intense for a few brief sections. Mostly washouts coming down off the higher ridge-line.
Yeah, it got really close on that one. Didn't scrape. On the next few washes it did scrape a little. It's a 5.25" drop hitch so once I move to an actual off-road coupler it should raise up even with the rear bumper more.
Did one overnight. Wasn't part of the plan, but it was a good thing we stopped when we did or we would have hit the technical sections in low/no light.
Other than an invasion by some wild hogs, the site was awesome. So quiet and so dark. The hogs just had us on edge all night so we really couldn't enjoy it.
Did you go up the Cherry Creek Trail or the 288 bypass. It is my understanding that the northern section of the Cherry Creek trail is permanently closed. I'll have to check what they say on the BDR site.
EDIT (Nevermind) I think this is the re-route per the BDR site:
http://ridebdr.com/News/AZBDR-Re-Route-Section-5-Forest-Road-203
EDIT (Nevermind) I think this is the re-route per the BDR site:
http://ridebdr.com/News/AZBDR-Re-Route-Section-5-Forest-Road-203
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Uh, nope. We took FSR 203 all the way. Explains why it was so "technical." I thought I had an updated GPX file for the AZBDR, but I guess not. The only signs we saw were ones that said, "road may be impassible, 4wd required." In all honesty it wasn't all that bad. All the washouts from the flooding had been well traveled before we got there. There was only one that was bypassed rather than repaired.
They are eventually going to close the upper section off. Tonto NFS says it encroaches into the Sierra Anche Wilderness Area but a lot of folks have some doubts of that. There was supposed to be a larger washed out section which was impassable. Maybe that's where your picture was taken. I believe it is past the old cabin and where you pop out on 288 to take the right towards Young. We looked for it once but did not find it.
Not sure about that.
No, that section was after the above photo. The washout was technically impassible, but there was a bypass that wasn't too bad. Not sure if the bypass would last another heavy rain though. I'm not sure I'd want to attempt it with a stock 4wd. On 33's with a front locker and good driving skills I was pushing it. I can see why the BDR did the reroute... although it would have been super easy on a bike.
Looked at the maps more the other night. Looks like it does. For a long while the wilderness area boundary seems to parallel the road along the ridge. Then, for some reason the line just goes straight for a while and, at least according to the 2016 USFS map I was looking at, FSR 203 does cut into the wilderness area. The real question is can you travel the road through that corner of the wilderness area since you're still on the eastern side of the ridge and it just means no camping in that area, or if that road is supposed to be off limits. I saw no postings that we were in the wilderness area (or anywhere near it) and you're far enough down in elevation when on the road that it'd be next to impossible to venture over the ridge into the wilderness area from FSR 203.
