The Box Canyon /Coke Ovens Trip, 10/15/06
We had seven vehicles on this trip, with the participants including Jack & Sandy Knight, Ron & Jan Finger, Jack and Becky Underberg, Kurt, Toni, and Patrick Kuhl, Tom Flood and his friend Matt, and Pat Neveau, and a collection of dogs. We left the Walgreen’s rendezvous place at King’s Ranch Road at about 9:30 am and headed down towards Florence, turning off the main road at Price Road. After a long dusty drive we stopped to air down at the mouth of the Box Canyon and headed on in. My own recollection is that the Canyon seemed changed since the last time I had driven it. There was a small stream flowing, and it had been rearranged by floods, which had piled up a lot of gravel behind some of the bigger rocks. On leaving the Box Canyon we turned east and headed to the Martinez Cabins, but just before we reached the grove of cottonwoods near the cabins, the trail was blocked by a huge washout, that even looked doubtful to some of the quad riders. The trail was almost completely washed away, and the only possible way for a larger vehicle was to head down to the bottom of the stream bed and then climb up a steep, crumbly clay slope. Everyone decided that the cabins were not worth the risk of a rollover, so we all made 10-point turns on the narrow trail, and headed back towards the Coke Ovens. The trail here was more challenging than before, and had evidently suffered during the last couple of winters. We stopped for lunch in a hollow with enough old mesquites to provide some shade, and then continued on, but somewhere on the hilltop above the Coke Ovens we took a wrong trail and wound up down by the river facing a dense tangle of willows. After backtracking up to the top of the hill we located the right trail, but by then we were getting low on time and decided to head out in the hope of getting back to the main road before dark. We reached the junction with the Box Canyon trail just about dusk, and decided to head for Cottonwood Canyon as the easiest way out. We were delayed by some mechanical trouble with Matt’s Cherokee, but Tom Flood was able to fix it. A little more of a problem held us up at the sizeable “waterfall” obstacle, and by then it was dark. Fortunately Pat Neveau was able to lead us out, and without him we would certainly have wandered around there all night. We finally arrived at route 79 by 7.00 pm, and rounded off the trip with dinner together at the Red Sage restaurant in Gold Canyon. We were planning to meet Lee & Linda Love and Ron & Matthew Linder, who had gone down to camp in the area the preceding night, after we came out of Box Canyon. We made CB radio contact with them while in the Box Canyon, but they were evidently heading out, and our paths did not cross on this trip.
Jack Knight
