National Public Lands Day was
September 25th and National Parks,
National Forests, BLM lands, National Wildlife
Reserves and more from coast to coast were teeming
with volunteers from all walks of life. This is
the day that friends and people from both sides of
the fence worked side by side on projects ranging
from clean ups to trail repair/maintenance,
interpretive projects, sign
installation/replacements and other worthy
projects.
JeepExpeditions.org was one of
the volunteer organizations that provided man power
and resources for projects on “The Devils Highway”
in southern Arizona. Uh huh, you thought “the
Devil” in the title meant something else……….gotcha!
The Devils Highway, the El
Camino Del Diablo as the locals call it, is a
desolate 140 or so miles of trail that stretch from
Ajo, AZ to Yuma, AZ. It has been used by Indians,
Spaniards, Clergy, Explorers and settlers for over
400 years. Today much of it lies on the Cabeza
Prieta National Wildlife Refuge (NWR but parts of it
are in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Park and the
Barry Goldwater Gunnery Range. In our modern day
the Devils Highway is used mostly by the Border
Patrol, off-road enthusiasts and unfortunately
illegal immigrants and smugglers.
The El Camino has special
importance to the members of Jeep Expeditions in
that it was the clubs very first organized trip.
In 2006 when the trip was planned, the 30 Jeepers
who took part on this 3 day trip never thought that
the club would have transformed into the
organization today. Every year on the anniversary
of that 1st trip, a number of members
again “dance with the Devil” and relive those three
days in Feb 2007.
But today, some of our members
will spend 2 days on the Devils Highway for a
different purpose, volunteering to take care of the
trail that brought us together. When the call
came for volunteers for this project I immediately
contacted Margot Bissel the Public Use Assistant
there. We discussed what was needed and determined
the number of people required and the planning for
our weekend of service began.
The project was simple.
There were 6 to 8 signs that needed removed and
replaced with new signs. One each at the east and
west ends of the NWR and a few more at other access
areas into the NWR. Sounded simple enough we can
meet up on Friday at a base camp near Ajo, AZ and
complete our project on Saturday before dark. The
feeling that 6 volunteers would be what we would
need to complete the work, counting a Boy Scout and
his friend we had 7.
Friday night 5 of us left
Phoenix around 4:30, we knew the location of our
Friday night camp was about 1 mile from the highway
on Bates Well Road. What we didn't expect was how
difficult the faint trail would be to find after
dark. At near the 1 mile mark we stopped. As I
was surveying the area with my 3 mil candle power
spotlight, Lance yelled out "hey Mike, I found a
sidewinder next to my Jeep". Uh huh, it was no
sidewinder as the light shining on it confirmed it
was a real life diamond back rattle snake! And
Lance almost stepped on it.
Now as rattlesnakes go, it was
kind of a baby, not much more than maybe 30" long,
a body not much thicker than a plump hot dog and I
wondered if its small head could open up enough to
get around my thumb. Well none of us was willing
to find out if it could bite us but the snake was
now crawling up Lances tire and making a home
between his wheel and the brake drum.
Being the stewards of the
environment, we were concerned about the safety of
a critter that would not think twice of striking a
lethal blow to any of us given the chance. Finding
a long stick I gently pushed the rattler out from
the wheel and back on the ground which did not make
him happy. It kept trying to get back up and I
kept moving him away. I thought it was strange
that while the rattle was moving very quickly that
it didn't rattle but made a loud hum. We were
later told that the loud hum is to let you know that
he was very displeased with you. With time and
patience we got the snake away from the Jeep and we
were able to leave the snake safely behind.
We found the trail to our
campsite just a few yards down the road and followed
it in. It's amazing how things look so much
different at night than in the day. After a quarter
mile or so we thought we had reached our camp but at
day break we realized that it was about 100 yards up
the trail yet. Oh well, the spot we stopped at was
a good sized camp for 5 of us.
Tents set up and dinners made
we sat by the campfire cooking marshmallows with
Lance talking of Snipe Hunts and other Boy Scout
"myths" to the two youth. I think they played along
with him and didn't buy the stories of the 25 foot
lizards that came out of the mine we camped next to
at night looking for food or the snipes. In any
case they made for good campfire stories and it
wasn't too long that our youngest volunteers called
it a night. A few hours later after some good
conversation the adults realized it was nearly
midnight and that 6 am was going to come sooner than
later and we called it a night.
It never fails when I camp. No
matter how tired I am or how late I stayed up the
night before I can't sleep past 6. Today was no
different. I think by 6am all of us were
stirring, working on breakfast and by 7 am we were
breaking camp. It wasn't long and we heard the
sound of a vehicle coming our way. It was Sam and
his new Rubicon JK. We chatted for a while and
headed to the Visitors Center for the Cabeza Prieta
NWR to meet Margot Bissell the volunteer
coordinator.
As we arrived at the NWR HQ we
picked up Jake, another club member of Jeep
Expeditions and were greeted by Margot. Being a
great host, Margot had fresh coffee for those who
wanted it. Once settled in the conference room she
explained the project, had a project folder for us
with pictures, handed out maps and other information
and thanked us for our participation. By 9 am we
were on the road to our 1st stop about 26 miles into
the trail.
NWR maintenance made things easy for us in that they
dropped off all of the new signs and supplies at
each location. They also removed all but one of
the old signs which also saved us time. Within a
few minutes we were able to have the new composite
sign installed and the protective film removed from
it. The ceramic coated steel signs at the kiosk
was a different story. In order to install the new
frames, we would need a drill and drill bits,
something that we were not aware of and
unfortunately something we didn’t have with us.
Having done what we could and with the success of
the large sign installed, the dusty trail invited us
to the next sign.
Within a few miles we came along our 3rd
encounter with Border Patrol officers. This time
two trucks parked just off the trail. As a
courtesy we stopped to say hello and found out that
they had at least one prisoner in custody. Being
as this time of year is cooler the activity of
illegal crossing increase they told us to pay
attention to our surroundings. With their advice in
hand, we continued down the trail passing several
more officers in both trucks and “Rhino” type
vehicles.
While most of the Devils Highway is sand there are
some areas of rock and the “famous” moondust.
Moondust is a powdered silt that resembles a fine
talcum powder, only brown. Once vehicles hit the
moondust, you have to leave a huge gap between Jeeps
in order to see anything. Visibility behind
another vehicle is zero for 30-50 yards sometimes.
Even with windows up and A/C running, you will still
smell and breath moondust which due to its fine
composition, literally gets into just about
everything. We hit the longest stretch of moondust
just before lunch. My only comment is that I was
glad my Jeep was the lead Jeep!
Moondust behind us, we soon hit the Pinacate
volcanic fields where we stopped for lunch. By now
the sun was high in the sky, the temps were over 100
and the only shade one could find was the shade your
Jeep offered. As our Boy Scouts did some exploring
we could see the dust trails of the Border Patrol
along the border about a mile to our south. Mexico
Highway 2 was easily visible in the distance as
were trucks and vehicles traveling on it and even a
few buildings.
Lunch over we hit the trail again with our next stop
Tule Well campground. While there we looked
around for any signs of litter and to do a quick
clean up if necessary.
Some of the guys went into the old cabin and signed
the “guest book”. Turning the pages back we could
see names of our members from past trips on the
Devils Highway.
With our business done at Tule Well we split into
two groups. Group 1 headed to the western boundary
of the NWR to replace the sign there, Group two
headed to the northern boundary via Christmas Pass
to take care of that sign. We kept in touch with
our Ham Radios for several miles until the flat
lands were separated by mountains which became an
obstacle to our radio to radio communications.
After clearing the mountains we were again in radio
range and both groups reported their progress with
the last two locations. Group 1 at the west end
was again thwarted by the lack of a drill and drill
bits and Group 2 was able to replace the large
composite sign but not the ceramic ones due to not
having a drill and bits. Both groups were now
“sprinting” to Interstate 8 to call it a day.
Group 1 made it to civilization first and drove the
several miles to where Group 2 was exiting. As we
spent time airing up our tires for the trip home we
traded our experiences of the last two sign
locations and of the day in general. With night
time coming upon us fast, we pulled one by one off
the dirt trail and on to the highway. One thing
that I noticed and so did everyone else as my Jeep
attained the 75mph highway speed that I was my own
dust storm. The moondust that has accumulated
everyone on our Jeeps was now flying off and
honestly causing a visibility problem for the
vehicles immediately in our tail winds. I was
surprised to see this go on for over a mile.
On
Monday I contacted Margot and told her of our
success’s and challenges. She seemed to be happy
with what we had accomplished and invited us back
again to do a sign project along the NWR’s boundary
with the Goldwater Gunnery Range. I told her we
would be glad to be of service.
National Public Lands Days Photo Gallery - CLICK
HERE
Jeep Expeditions Photo Gallery - CLICK HERE
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