Dugas Ranch - Photo 58202623

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Following our route along the Great Western Trail, we soon came upon the old Dugas Ranch site. Here, we found reminders of what it was like to live a ranch life far from any city. Fred Dugas settled here with his family in the late 1800s and built several houses along Sycamore Creek.

We found several spots along one of the canyon walls where miners evidently did some speculative digging. We found small tailing piles and one small cave that had been dug into the side of the canyon. We found no great riches here beyond the scenery, and the historical diggers must have done the same.

Over much of our trip, we followed the Great Western Trail, a trail system that spans more than 3,000 miles across Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. Overall, it crosses 18 national forests in the western part of the country. Sections of the trail allow motorized access, such as where we traveled. Some sections are for non-motorized use only.

We started our trip near Seven Springs Wash just outside Scottsdale and headed into desert terrain typical of central Arizona. By trip’s end, we would see a variety of climates.

We would find more water in the washes and seasonal creeks as we climbed into the high desert. Mike Wixom was along on our adventure in his well-built 1985 Jeep CJ-7.

We soon found our first water crossing. It was March when we made our trip. The weather had just started to warm and there was runoff from snowmelt from a storm that hit just a week before our trip. At this point, we were about 3,000 feet above sea level.

Following our route along the Great Western Trail, we soon came upon the old Dugas Ranch site. Here, we found reminders of what it was like to live a ranch life far from any city. Fred Dugas settled here with his family in the late 1800s and built several houses along Sycamore Creek.

Dugas peaked in population in the 1930s, and the ranch community supported a school, post office, blacksmith shop, and several boarding houses. Today, only a few residents still live in this quiet area.

There were a number of old buildings scattered through this area and we took a short time to look at them from the side of the road, not wanting to trespass onto the private property. We saw numerous signs of old hardware, such as this aging homemade door latch on this outbuilding.

We tent-camped our first night in the Prescott National Forest. Temps got down into the mid 30s, but daytime temps were in the comfortable 70s.

Climbing in elevation, we soon found ourselves in chaparral, thick with scrub trees. It had snowed here the week before, and we found patches of light mud where the melt was accumulating.

You’ll find many contrasts in the arid high desert. Pine trees can be found alongside cacti in transitional regions between desert and chaparral environments.

One stretch of highway we ran through was a scenic canyon leading from Cottonwood up to Jerome. While we did some travel by highway, the majority of trip miles under our treads were done on dirt surfaces.

The town of Jerome is an old mining town founded upon gold, silver, and copper mining. Many old homes and other buildings are still scattered across the mountainsides near areas of mining. The locale is rich in history dating back more than one hundred years and harkens back to a time highly representative of the Wild West.

We followed a piney trail into the forest south of Jerome and dropped into Martin Canyon, following the Smiley Rock Trail. Elevation here is about 6,000 feet.

Mark Peterson crawls the boulders of Martin Canyon in his 2006 Jeep Rubicon TJ. This time of year meant most of the trees, save for the pines, had shed their leaves during winter. When temps warm in the coming months, this trail will be engulfed with a full green canopy.

An impressive storm front developed ahead of us as we emerged in the late afternoon from Martin Canyon and made our way across large valleys back toward Jerome. We could see big sheets of rain in the distance but only saw a few sprinkles on our windshields. In time, the storm dissipated and left us with a clearing skyline.

The canyons above Jerome pop with an orange-red clay color. Here, we followed the winding switchbacks to our next leg of the Great Western Trail that would take us north and higher in elevation to the town of Williams.

We arrived at camp on night 2 just as the sun was disappearing. We set up our tents and enjoyed a hot meal after a long, satisfying day on the trail. Follow along in Part II to read about the rest of our Arizona expedition.