4 Wheeling the 4 Peaks
We bought the Jeep with two things in mind: towing it behind the View and exploring pretty much anywhere we want to go. We easily towed the Jeep down here and now we've done our first off road trip out to the Four Peaks area north east of Phoenix. This was another beautiful drive going from the desert floor all the way up into a pine forest, then back down again.
Parts of the road were pretty smooth. Others were very steep and very bumpy. We didn't have to do any technical rock climbing, but it was a mostly unrelenting bumpy ride for about 28 miles. At times I came totally out of my seat making me contemplate the benefits of a 5-point restraint, or adult-sized child seat. Getting tossed around for a few hours was unexpectedly tiring. But fun.
The map below gives an idea of the trail, which spans the mountains between highway 87 and highway 188 (the same general direction as the Apache Trail trip.) There is a web site devoted to off road trips, each of which is described with step-by-step guidance. In this case, it was easy to find our way as it's a well-used Forest Service road feeding a large area used for all kinds of off road vehicles. We saw motorcycles, dune buggies, and passenger cars (perhaps they're rentals, which are by definition, SUVs.) We even saw a tiny KIA that had been heavily modified to handle the terrain.
There's also a fair amount of target shooting based on the shotgun and pistol shells we found at most locations where we pulled off the road. Target shooting is legal in the area making me wonder about the potential interactions between marksmen and off road vehicle drivers. Seems like an odd combination.
Parts of the road were pretty smooth. Others were very steep and very bumpy. We didn't have to do any technical rock climbing, but it was a mostly unrelenting bumpy ride for about 28 miles. At times I came totally out of my seat making me contemplate the benefits of a 5-point restraint, or adult-sized child seat. Getting tossed around for a few hours was unexpectedly tiring. But fun.
The map below gives an idea of the trail, which spans the mountains between highway 87 and highway 188 (the same general direction as the Apache Trail trip.) There is a web site devoted to off road trips, each of which is described with step-by-step guidance. In this case, it was easy to find our way as it's a well-used Forest Service road feeding a large area used for all kinds of off road vehicles. We saw motorcycles, dune buggies, and passenger cars (perhaps they're rentals, which are by definition, SUVs.) We even saw a tiny KIA that had been heavily modified to handle the terrain.
There's also a fair amount of target shooting based on the shotgun and pistol shells we found at most locations where we pulled off the road. Target shooting is legal in the area making me wonder about the potential interactions between marksmen and off road vehicle drivers. Seems like an odd combination.