A Little Adventure

 

A Little Adventure

by rdpecken on Oct.02, 2011, under Area

On all of our trips to the Ranch, we pass by a turnoff that says, “Perkinsville – XX Miles” (I don’t remember how many miles, maybe 17 or so…)

So on this trip, on the way back, we came up on that sign again, and I thought, “Maybe this is a shortcut to I-17… Seems like about the right distance.”

So As I was making the turn to Perkinsville, I asked John, “Are you up for a little adventure?”. Turns out, it was a little more than I expected. The road started out as a nice paved two-lane road going to the Drake Cement Plant. Within just a couple of miles, we got the dreaded sign that says something like… “Travel at your own risk, unmaintained road”. But the road was still in pretty good shape, so we decided to continue on. Here is the path we ended up taking. Starting at Drake, and ending up in Jerome, AZ.

Drake-Perkinsville-Jerome Road

Once the pavement ended, we had a pretty good view from point #1 on the map, toward the Sedona area.

View near Drake, to the East

About an hour into the trip, we came across a pretty cool place where a creek had eroded out some rocks (about point # 2, on the map).

 
Erosion

Finally, about 1-1/2 hrs in, we found the Verde River crossing.

Verde River Valley

Upon reaching the river, we found the Perkinsville Bridge (Location # 3). It looks more like something in Nebraska, than in Arizona, but water will do that to this place.

Randy, at Perkinsville Bridge 
 
John at Perkinsville Bridge

The Verde river is pretty small at this point, and seems to back up under the bridge.

Verde River, upstream from Perkinsville Bridge

The Downsteam side flows a little cleaner…

Verde River downstream from Perkinsville Bridge

There is a nice little corral next to the river…

Corral at Perkinsville

As we climbed up the side of Mingus Mountain, we had a nice view to the north (Location # 4)…

North from Mingus

and finally, we dropped back into the Verde Valley off the mountain (Location # 5)

Coming down the mountain into town

All told, it was about a 3 hour shortcut.

1 comment for this entry (from previous blog site):
WB0WHO
October 4th, 2011 on 3:56 pm

I really enjoyed this Adventure! We really have some nice pictures! It is to bad no one had a camera on the Locked Gate Route 66 short cut!

John

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