featured article

ADVENTURE ARIZONA

WORDS BY SEAN MC GARVIE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVE DAHM

"All I saw was his taillights about twelve feet up and rolling to the left!"

It was a typical Tuesday morning when driving into the office thinking of overdue bills, the coming weekend’s chores, and how in world the morning radio DJs could be in such a great mood, when my cell phone rang. On the other end was my close friend that had recently moved to Lake Havasu, Arizona. A fellow adventurer at heart, he had come up with another wild idea to get me to come out. “Why don’t you grab your Rhino, come out to Havasu, and we’ll go to the Grand Canyon!” I don’t think I spoke for a full minute thinking back to the last “adventure” he came up with, which ended with a phone call to my wife explaining that we were stuck in a blizzard in Big Bear, and that we needed her to hook up the trailer to the back of my truck and come get us. I still hear about that…

Just before he hung up the phone, thinking we’d lost signal, I said, “That sounds like a great idea!”

Winter was coming on fast, so it was imperative that we did the ride as soon as possible. So with the holiday weekends filling up fast, we decided on the weekend before Christmas. With short days and brutally cold nights, it was definitely worthy of the title of “Adventure.”

That Monday before the trip, my buddy called to make sure I was still coming out, and to let me know that two of his fellow Rhino buddies would be joining the ride. So that Friday night after work, I headed straight to Havasu.

The next morning came early, as the four of us headed out around six o’clock, but first we had to stop by one of the guy’s office to grab a forgotten item. As it turned out, his office was located on the waterfront in the English Village, right next to the famous London Bridge. Photo Opp.! Being off-season and so early in the morning the place was deserted. So we snuck the Rhinos down to the lower level courtyard and took some great and rare photos.

Once on the trail heading out of town it started to sink in just how long this day was going to be. The first hour or so was some great high-speed Baja-style jeep roads that paralleled the highway heading northwest towards Kingman. Along the way, now paralleling the railroad tracks, we came across The Doll House. A truck stop / gentlemen’s club that must have been built very early in the last century, since it sported his and hers outhouses built right into the front next to the entrance.

After discussing the shady history of this place, we buckled up and headed for the hills. But first, while heading north trying to find a place to cross the railroad tracks, we stumbled into an old drag strip. Cruzing what would have been backwards up the old abandoned drag strip and rounding the barely standing announcing booth, we ran smack dab into a beautiful haven on earth. A perfectly groomed, unfenced BMX track! Rhino Supercross was born! (If you ever get the chance to run a Rhino on a BMX track, do it!)

Not wanting to draw too much attention to ourselves and burn too much precious warm daylight we headed for the hills, climbing our first real hill of the trip. After taking turns hanging from the side of each other’s rides to keep the rubber down, we headed off down the trail and back towards our main route. Not wanting to back-track, we made a loop out of it returning to our route a few miles further down, and passed one serious jump!

Past the Jump of Death, we came into what we thought to be an old abandoned factory. Or so we thought. Spreading out across the vast back lot of this mammoth facility to get out of each other’s dust, I happened to catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye. An over-eager Rent-a-Cop in an older Ford pickup with a single yellow flashing light on its roof was hot on our tail. We must have looked like scattering roaches as we headed in every direction trying to find a way out of there! Finally, we found a hole in the barbed wire topped fence and escaped to the safety of the opposite side to the railroad tracks. That made for a great laugh a mile or so up the road.

Driving four Rhinos down Main Street, Kingman was kind of cool. The looks from the passing cars and pedestrians on the street corners were a mix of surprise and wonder. Once refueled and back off the pavement we found a wide open dirt road that paralleled Route 66 north towards the town - if that’s what you’d call the single sign-covered gift shop complete with a beautiful all original ‘57 Corvette parked out front as “decoration”- of Hackberry. Venturing on, we found an old mining road that wound its way through the ever-changing landscape of red rock and sagebrush. Passing old Victorian style ranches nestled in the willows set along small seasonal streams, I really started to slow down mentally and take it all in. This was a great idea, indeed.

Pulling into the Indian Nation town of Peach Springs, located along the historic Route 66, it occurred to me that this trip was actually going to be a double feature. Not only were we headed for one of nature’s most wonderful marvels, but we were also being submerged in the romance and wonder of the Nation,s first interstate, the great 66. Once the greatest highway in the states, these towns that were once thriving metropolises are now merely empty shells of their former selves. When the newer, straighter, and faster Interstate 40 was completed, these towns that it bypassed turned to dust overnight.

We knew that from this town we could find a route that would take us to our destination, the Grand Canyon. We went into the local market with the sign on the front that said “One child in the store at a time please” and asked the Indian lady with the three kids running amuck how we could get to the Rim from there. She politely told us of Buck And Doe Road, just outside of town, and explained that we needed to buy a pass from the local wildlife office before venturing onto their sacred land. Then staring at my buddy’s $5000 professional camera slung over his shoulder, she reluctantly asked, “Are you going to be taking pictures? We said no.

It was now late in the afternoon and the sun was sinking low in the western winter sky. The temperature was dropping fast, and if we were going to make it to the edge for sunset photos we’d have to get moving. Heading out the 60-mile dirt road towards the Rim, we could see the top edges of the great canyon in the distance straight ahead, and off to our right in the distant north. We also passed small non-descript dirt roads heading off to the north every mile or so, but we continued down the main road as the anticipation of the canyon grew. After 45 minutes of this wide dirt road that now seemed to be running parallel to the Rim only a mile or so away, and with the sun setting fast, we made the fateful decision to take one of these inviting roads to the north, sure we’d run into the Rim in only a mile or two.

With the anticipation of the great Rim and unimaginable views reaching a fever pitch, we raced each other as if in the lead to win the world famous Baja 1000. After several miles of winding around through cattle grounds, chasing elk the size of fat horses with antlers spanning at least six feet, and racing blindly through a field of grass six feet high, we stopped along the old cattle trail and watched as the last of the sun sank into the western sky… We failed… But more importantly, where were we?!

As night quickly fell around us and the wind began to pick up, we knew we had a long and cold night ahead of us. Starting the campfire became priority number one as the temperature dropped into the 30’s, as if someone switched on the great A C in the sky. It was only seven o’clock. Happy hour!