Off the Beaten Path: Seven Springs to Sheep Bridge

Sometime in the recent past, I think I mentioned that I was gathering together some photos for a "compilation" post about one of my favorite off-road drives here in Arizona. Denis and I have jumped into the Blazer or the Jeep and taken these trails more than once, and each time was an adventure.

The drive takes us past old mines, ancient Indian ruins, a favorite beat-the-heat spot for Phoenicians at the turn of the twentieth century, relics of the Civilian Conservation Corps, riparian areas tucked away into canyons, and a national monument-- just to hit some of the highlights.

There are two different directions you can take to get to Seven Springs and Sheep Bridge. Seven Springs was a popular spot for early Phoenicians to go to beat the summer heat. They'd load up their wagons for the two-day journey, and spend as long as they could in the shady green oasis at the cooler elevations. Seven Springs was such a popular spot that the Civilian Conservation Corps built a small campground among the huge sycamore trees in 1934. They did good work, because the stone buildings have survived many, many floods over the years.

Got your sunscreen, hat, and water? Good. Let's get started!

If you head north from Phoenix to get to Seven Springs, you drive through the swanky areas of Cave Creek and Carefree. The road (still paved) takes you past the old Cave Creek Mistress Mine up on the side of a mountain. It's an old gold mine, the remnants of which burned down in the 2005 Cave Creek Complex fire that burned over 250,000 acres. You see it here before the fire.

Just past the old gold mine, there's a turn-off to the Sears-Kay Ruins, the remnants of an ancient Hohokam hilltop fortress built circa 1050 AD.

There's a one-mile self-guided loop trail taking you through the ruins.

As the (now unpaved) road wound higher into the mountains and we got closer to Seven Springs, it was easy to tell that we were getting closer to water. In the desert, bright green means water.

And here we are at Seven Springs. As you can see, there was water running across the road, which is always a thrill to anyone who's lived in the desert for very long. After all, we're used to crossing bridges signed for waterless rivers.

I always feel like a child when fording any sort of stream. I want to make a big splash!

Denis and I never want to leave this gorgeous little spot. There are hiking trails, and those restrooms that the CCC built 'way back in 1934 can certainly come in handy!

Here am I, sitting in the Blazer in the middle of Tangle Creek. After Seven Springs, the dirt trail continues to wind higher into the mountains and cross through riparian areas. We picked up quite a bit of mud on this adventure.

Here I am, standing on a boulder above Roundtree Creek, a lovely riparian area in a small canyon filled with birds and other wildlife.

As always, I roamed the banks of Roundtree Creek searching for plants I'd never seen before, like this miner's lettuce. Miner's lettuce is packed with vitamins, and during the Gold Rush, miners ate it to prevent scurvy.

There were other plants to see, too. This is Golden Corydalis.

On this particular attempt to get to Sheep Bridge, we hadn't realized that this part of Arizona had gotten a lot more rain than Phoenix. The deep, slippery mud and huge, seemingly bottomless, "lakes" in the trail made us turn back.

This photo was taken shortly after Tangle Creek. When we'd given up on getting to Sheep Bridge, we turned around and headed back the way we came. Between the turn-off for the bridge and Roundtree Creek, there were some hair-raising, deep ruts in the mud that pulled the Blazer right into them no matter how Denis tried to avoid them. At one point, the Blazer was at such an angle, I wouldn't've had to stretch far to reach out and touch the ground! All we could do was keep moving, otherwise we'd been well and truly stuck and walking for miles. The fun side to this was getting back to swanky Cave Creek and Carefree. The Blazer was literally covered in mud. We looked like the hillbillies returning to Beverly Hills after a successful possum hunt. Mud would come off the Blazer in big squishy chunks and splat on the spotless SUVs that had never been used off-road. We saw some horrified looks from those drivers seeing mud touch their four-wheeled babies, and I have to admit that we laughed all the way back to Phoenix.

You can also get to Sheep Bridge by taking I-17 north from Phoenix to the Bloody Basin exit and heading east. We'd barely gotten off the interstate and onto the dirt road when a coachwhip snake crossed in front of us. I've never seen a snake move as fast as that one did. Just past the first snake encounter, we stopped so I could photograph one of an entire field of blooming desert mariposas.

Past the mariposas, we crossed the Agua Fria River. I know, it doesn't look like much, but during the 500-year flood of the late 1970s, this little nothing of a stream washed away a very large bridge in Sun City.

Another look at the Agua Fria.

Denis watching the minnows in the water.

Just past the bend in the road, you can look down at a very large ranch. Must be interesting living there during floods...

If you see what looks to be a stick lying across the trail, don't run over it. Snakes like to sun themselves there. This is a gopher snake, also known as "the farmer's friend" because it will keep barns and outbuildings mouse- and rat-free.

One reason why I like a good zoom lens on my cameras. I stayed far enough away not to bother it, and it didn't bother me.

Particularly in spring, these trails can be awash in wildflowers like this Arizona Yellow-throat Gilia. Wildflowers can be so small that, if you never get out of your vehicle, you'll never know they're there.

These golden desert-trumpets formed carpets of yellow in meadows and along the hillsides.

Large clumps of Blackfoot daisies also dotted the landscape.

Getting closer to Sheep Bridge, the trail was extremely washboarded. Our kidneys took quite a lot of jostling, and even this saguaro looked like it was trying to escape.

Our first view of Sheep Bridge.

Side view of Sheep Bridge over the Verde River. The bridge was built in 1944 to allow sheep to be moved from one grazing range to another without fording the river. The sheep drives stopped in 1978, which just happens to coincide with major flooding-- like that bridge collapse over the Agua Fria I mentioned earlier.

Sheep Bridge. We found fresh cougar tracks in the sand on the other side.

View from the bridge.

The Verde River.

 

I also want to mention that, when you take the Bloody Basin Trail from I-17 to Sheep Bridge, you'll be passing through the Agua Fria National Monument, an area rich in wildlife as well as human history. The name Bloody Basin comes from some contentious meetings between white settlers and the Apache. You can find yourself high in the mountains on a rocky trail so narrow that you can look out your side window and see nothing but a sheer drop of hundreds of feet. You'll cross a "saddle" of solid rock on which nothing can grow, and you know that it will still be there long after humans have vanished from the face of the earth.

This is one of my favorite drives in the entire state, and I only wish a computer crash hadn't destroyed some of my photos so I could show you more. But all good things must come to an end. I hope you enjoyed the journey. Now it's time to wash off the trail dust, grab a cold one, and put your feet up!

Some R&R in Cochise County

Denis and I usually take a week off to celebrate my birthday/our anniversary at the end of January, and this year was no exception. The only thing different was that we couldn't stay in our usual cottage because someone else has taken a long-term lease on it.

I happened to find a cottage in the Sulphur Springs Valley east of Bisbee. Sandhill Crane Cottage is a few more miles off the beaten path than our usual place to stay, but that can have perks, too. For one thing, it was only a half mile from Whitewater Draw where thousands of sandhill cranes spend the winter.

The cottage looks a bit drab on the outside in the winter, and I would like to go back sometime and stay in the summer when all the trees are leafed out. The cottage itself is straw-bale construction covered with stucco. That bell up at the top makes me think of the Alamo. How about you? 

Let's take a look at the inside. 

 Here I am in the living area looking toward the dining room and the front door. This cottage was built by an old hippie who didn't like doors; the only ones in the entire cottage are exterior doors.

There are caliche floors made of decomposed limestone (nicknamed "nature's cement") that has been beaten down. The old hippie also liked stained glass transoms, which were beautiful when the sun shone through them.

The front door happens to be a salvaged 200-year-old pair of mission doors. If you're looking at the photo to the right and you're wondering what those light-colored lines are on the doors, well... that's daylight. It's a wonder we didn't freeze our toenails off, but we didn't. The two heaters in the cottage kept us nice and toasty.

The owner of the property gave us a guided tour, and one of the things she told us was that there is a pair of great-horned owls that roost in her trees. I did see them, but they were so well camouflaged that my photos were worthless. They were quite vocal on occasion, however.

A piece of advice that she gave us stuck in my mind: "If you go outside at night, make noise. We have javelina and coyotes." 

The builder of the cottage used wood beams throughout. About twenty years ago, there was a bad fire in the Chiricahua Mountains, and he brought back several burned trees to clean up and use. Denis and I found ourselves admiring the wood, and we could see burn marks if we looked closely enough.

I took this photo to the right from my vantage point in the dining room. You can see more beams-- and the lack of a bedroom door. The bathroom is through the bedroom to the right. For a couple, this place is perfect. Who really needs doors? If there were more people in the cottage, privacy might be a bit problematic.

That table to the left holds the television. While we were there, it also held the Blu-ray player that we brought with us along with a selection of movies. Nothing like traveling in style, is there? Denis bought a refurbished Blu-ray player for $30. It's very small and fit in easily with our other provisions.

There were two tables in the cottage-- one in the kitchen where we ate and the large table in the dining room. For some reason, Denis decided to make the dining room table his gizmo-charging station, and the top of the table often looked like a den of snakes with all the cords going every which way.

As you can see, I also chose the dining room table as my headquarters. Knitting patterns being held down by magnets, a bottle of water, reading glasses, a Kindle. I not only had the best view of the cottage, I was sitting by a pair of French doors and had a good view of the outdoors.

      







See what I mean? You can also see some of the plants the owner brought in to keep them from freezing, and there's my knitting bag.  

My birthday/anniversary was a special day. When I woke up at sunrise, I was serenaded by the owls perched in the tree right outside the cottage, and then in the afternoon while I was knitting by the French doors, this roadrunner came right up to the glass to get a look at me before wandering leisurely through the grounds to find tasty morsels for its lunch. (It's chowing down on one in the photo.)

One of the reasons why wildlife loves this property is that it has a pond which was formed by the local Apaches coming to dig the clay they needed to make their pottery.

While we were there, a storm moved through and what tumbleweeds didn't roll past those French doors seem to have drowned their sorrows in the pond.

Of course we went to Whitewater Draw-- especially since we were so close. We've met people from all over the world there. People want to see thousands of sandhill cranes, and I don't blame them. It's a Bucket List sort of moment.  

  


While we were there, something startled the cranes, and thousands of them took to the air. The sound they make is quite memorable, and I have to admit that I find it very peaceful.

Toward the end of our stay, we were treated to a run-of-the-mill Arizona sunset. I never tire of them. They are absolutely breathtaking. 

The night before we headed back to Phoenix, coyotes serenaded me as I lay in bed. When Denis and I loaded up the Jeep in the morning, we had a little surprise....

  

The Jeep was covered in a heavy frost. It's been a lot of years since that's happened, and in a way, it was a fitting end to our week staying at the end of a dirt road in a house made of straw.


  

The Road to Durness

A few weeks ago, I shared with all of you my favorite civilized portion of our trip to the UK-- Little Moreton Hall-- and now it's time to end it all with my favorite uncivilized part: the day trip we took from our rental cottage in Saltburn on the shores of the Cromarty Firth to the most remote village in the northwest of Scotland: Durness.

You might wonder how I even knew Durness existed, and it all boils down to the fact that my husband, Denis, is a huge John Lennon fan. In reading something about Lennon one day, I noticed that when he was a child, Durness was where he and his family would go on summer holiday. When I read "Scotland," "Highlands," and "beaches," I searched for images of Durness, and what I saw convinced me that we had to go there.

And so we did... on a day that began with a bit of gloom. (Just click on any photo to enlarge it in a new window.)

The weather at the beginning wasn't very promising.

Our route was a bit of an oval because, when you're out exploring, you don't want to return to base the exact same way that you started out. It was cold and windy, with dark grey clouds above, the pewter glint of lochs, and mountains buried in snow.

More gloom

Even though the skies were forbidding, my heart was light because I was out exploring in one of my favorite spots in the whole wide world, the Highlands. The sight of small frozen burns and waterfalls made me happy to be in a warm rental car!

A lone cottage with a view on the road to Ullapool

Have you ever seen a small house in a remote area and wondered what it would be like to live there? That's what I did when I saw the cottage in the photo above.

Our first view of Ullapool

In the photo above, you can see that the steering wheel is indeed on the right, and that we were being guided by Denis's GPS (which did an excellent job throughout our travels). We stopped because it was our first view of Ullapool-- and the last town of any size we would see for many miles. Ullapool is a major tourist destination in the Highlands, and on a future trip, I intend to board the ferry at Ullapool and journey to the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides to see the standing stones of Callanais.

Ullapool in the distance on the shores of Loch Broom

Ullapool on a peninsula jutting out into Loch Broom

We drove through the streets of Ullapool and parked the car for a few minutes so Denis could bring up the next section of our journey to Durness on his GPS.

There's a signpost up ahead!

Perhaps it's time to tell you a bit about the British road numbering system. You can see a bit of it on the road sign above. Any road beginning with an "M"-- as in M60-- is a motorway (or interstate to Americans). Limited access, higher speed limits, at least four lanes. A road that begins with an "A" is a primary road-- like a highway in the US. A paved, major road. "B" roads are secondary roads, like the county roads or two-laned blacktops that connect all the little towns in central Illinois where I grew up. Why am I telling you this? Because you're going to be able to see just what an "A" road looks like in a remote area, that's why!

Calda House by the shore of Loch Assynt

We turned left and hadn't traveled very far when we came to some ruins on the shore of Loch Assynt.

Closeup of Calda House

The first ruin was Calda House, a Georgian mansion built in 1726 for Kenneth MacKenzie of Assynt. His wife, Frances, had tired of living in nearby cold and drafty Ardvreck Castle, and persuaded her husband to build the first mansion in the area. It was so grand that it put Kenneth into debt and forced him to put it up for sale.

Ardvreck Castle

Calda House is within sight of Ardvreck Castle.

Closeup of Ardvreck Castle

As you can see, it's cut off from the mainland at high tide-- and you can also see that the gloom was dissipating, and we were beginning to see patches of blue in the sky. That didn't prevent us from getting caught in a small rain shower, however!

The bridge at Kylesku

This bridge was our next opportunity to get out into the frosty, bracing air and look down into the frigid waters of Loch Cairnbawn, which was the site of the World War II midget submarine training base.

Loch Cairnbawn

The sun had finally decided to shine with a vengeance, and the combination of sky, mountains and loch was so beautiful it almost took my breath away. (I say almost because the wind had already accomplished that!) I've never seen water that looked as cold as it did in Loch Cairnbawn.

The "A" road to Durness and a tiny glimpse of the sea

Now you can see why I told you a few facts about the British road system. The road you see in the photo above is a one-lane road, yet it is the major road here. This should tell you quite a bit about how remote it is.

Oncoming traffic

In case you're wondering what happens if a vehicle comes from the other direction when you're on this one-lane road, there are passing places all along the route where you can pull over and wait for the other vehicle to pass.  (Everyone waves hello to each other, by the way.) Oh... and did you notice that this was a bit of a traffic jam with a van and a sheep to contend with?

It was only a few minutes more to Durness. I'd seen a glimpse of heart-stopping turquoise, and I couldn't wait for my first look at the sea and the beaches!

Sango Bay

We parked in the Vistors Centre car park and made the short walk to the beach.

Impressionism

I didn't even notice that the wind was trying to blow the hair off my head. All I could see before me was a living, breathing Impressionist painting in bands of green and tan and white and blues, and touches of peach and pink. Oh, those blues of every description and shade!

Shades of blue

After quite a while, we wandered into the Visitor's Centre to get out of the wind and the cold. We looked at all the exhibits and at all the items for sale, and then we went back to the car to drive to the center of the village of Durness where we found another car park and walked over to a small grocery store where we bought sandwiches and drinks for lunch before driving on a couple of miles to Balnakiel.

The gateway to magic

There was a place to pull off the road and park not far from the sign above. We sat in the car out of the wind and ate our lunch. Once our meal was consumed, we walked over to the ruins of an ancient church.

Balnakiel Old Church

Balnakiel Old Church was built in the thirteenth century and has the grave of Donuill Mac Morraichaidh, a serial bandit and murderer.  He's buried inside one wall of the church so "that his enemies couldn't walk over his grave."

But it was finally time to open that gate and walk through to the beach.

My first view of Balnakiel Beach

A man was playing catch with his dog. A small stream was running down to meet the sea. The track sloped gently to the beach, and I didn't know which was the more beautiful: the sky or the water. Once again, the Highlands had bewitched me.

Acres of lovely soft, golden sand to walk!

Denis hurried down the beach while I took my time. I know that, although he enjoys life in the desert, he does miss the sea, so we each communed in our own way.

I couldn't get over the colors of the landscape in this remote, heavenly spot. I wanted to spend at least a week here with little to do but walk the beach, hear and smell the sea, and read.  Oh... and taking time for one of my other favorite pastimes....

My Balnakiel shells that now live in the Sonoran Desert

I love to look for shells. I love to stuff them in my pockets as I walk, and that's exactly what I did here.

A Beatles' song, In My Life, has a great deal of meaning for me. It means even more to me now because the basis of the song is a poem written by John Lennon about his childhood summer holidays in Durness. Little of the poem remains in the song, but I feel it there, in its heart-- and in mine.

Denis and I have talked about going back and spending a week in Durness. I think it was fate that brought me to a website for the Balnakiel Bothy, a small cottage overlooking Balnakiel Beach, not far away at all from the gate Denis and I walked through that day in March.  It's a cottage from which I could walk out and explore all that sand, fill my pockets with shells, and drink in the incredible landscape. To be honest, I doubt that I'd get much reading done. Would you, if you had all that at your doorstep?

When we arrived at Manchester Airport to begin the first leg of our journey back to Phoenix, someone at the car rental agency had to vacuum soft, golden sand from the passenger side floorboards of our car. I had seashells tucked away in my suitcase, and they're within sight of me now. They sing to me of endless skies and sugary sands, and the shimmer of a turquoise sea.