September 2002 - Ruby Wash
Trail Rating - 3.5
Trip Leader: Chris Villarreal
Photos submitted by Chris Villarreal
Here's some pictures from a nice Sunday drive (Arizona style). I wanted to do some exploring out in the Wickenburg Mountains. I had been there a year or so ago but didn't really pay attention to where we went. In preparation for this outing I looked over some topo maps for jeep trails to follow. One in particular piqued my interest, it followed the Ruby wash and there was a section that bypassed the wash for a ways and then dropped back into the wash. This got me to thinking what kind of obstacle would make normal people avoid it? There had to be something in that wash worth taking a look at.
I met up with Jim Kawa on Sunday, most everyone else I mentioned the trip to couldn't make it for one reason or another. We proceeded in Via Castle Hot Springs Rd, then turned into the Trilby wash and headed north. The picture above is a jeep trail on the map that looks to have washed out nicely. There's a 4-5ft deep notch to the right of where Jim is walking.
(Click for larger images)
Here's a picture from the top. This area has seen a lot of erosion since I was last out here, a lot more than either of us expected to see. We marked this trail on Jim's gps for future exploration and proceeded up the wash.
Here's a good example of a washout, this is right before we entered the Ruby Wash. I had traversed this trail back in January 2001 but I hadn't realized it yet.
In the previous trip back here we didn't proceed down the wash after finding a very narrow section with a large boulder sitting about door height. The boulder has since been washed down the wash, enough to make it passable for most vehicles.
We bypassed a nice rocky section since we were on an exploration mission, but you had to drive this part.
Jim navigated between the rocks. Behind his rig in the second picture you can see the bypass we came down. Stay in the wash for more rocks.