May 2003 - Castle Creek

Trail Rating - 5.5

Photos submitted by Chris Villarreal

A friend, Scott, and myself did an early morning exploration run on Sunday.  It was actually pretty chilly in the morning down by the running water in Castle Creek, we left the trailers around 6:30am.  We were checking out some old mines an stumbled upon this wash while investigating an old washed out access road.  The lower part of the wash was used to access a series of mines via an access road that bypasses some impassible obstacles for ordinary vehicles.  

(Click for larger images)

For the first half of the wash the going was pretty mild, then we hit this little squeeze. 

All 4 of my tires were trying to climb at once and the rig didn't want to go on my first try, I adjusted my line to the right and that worked.  

Being a little bit wider made the squeeze a little more challenging for Scott. 

His wheelbase was perfect to climb the rock pile taking the first line I tried. 

Around the bend we found this waterfall.   

The rock provided good traction and we made short work of it. 

Here's the reason for the 5.5 rating, this waterfall/notch I think will require a winch and has the potential for wedging your vehicle.  Just before this obstacle we walked thru a tight section that reminded me of Twisted. 

The next waterfall was even meaner looking.  That notch is very tight.  With only two of us on this trip we decided to backtrack out. 

Ironically, most of the roads in this areas have more vegetation growing on them than the washes they bypass.  This one had 3 foot deep ruts in some places from erosion and I suspect the large number of weeds and flowers is due to the rains earlier this year.  If you look close you can see us parked on the road near the top of the hill.  We headed back to the trailers around 10:30am.  The summer heat was just starting to make its presence known, I'd guess it was about 90 degrees by that time.