KOFA Cemetery

 We took another ride into the KOFA Wildlife Refuge.  This time we went on the ride toward the KOFA mine.  We went past a lot of RV's camping along the road.  They like to camp here because it is free to camp for up to 14 days.  The road is in pretty good shape.  You can drive a car out on it pretty far but there is some washboardy parts.  We followed the road almost all the way to the mine.  The last part of the road is closed to vehicles and is private property.  

We parked and walked about two tenths of a mile toward the east and found the cemetery.  There is a fence around the whole thing or at least where they identified most of the bodies are buried.  There are a few stones with writing on them mostly in Spanish.   They seem to be from the 1880's.  There were a few large wooden markers but mostly just rocks outlining graves or covering them.  It was a very peaceful setting for a cemetery.

The Thumbs

 We followed the trail that leads to the Big Eye mine.  I took pictures of Thumb Butte and Thumb peak when we got around to the backside of them.  Along the way we saw a few campers enjoying camping out in the desert --off grid.  If your going to camp out here you must bring everything including lots of water as there is nothing within 30 or 40 miles.  The Castle Dome museum is out this way but they have nothing for sale useful for camping.  

On our way to the mine we didn't see one other vehicle but about twenty minutes after we got to the end of the road by the mine here comes the motorbikes, 4wheelers and jeeps.  We had gotten pictures and weren't going to try walking to the mine itself so we got out of there.  Luckily, the rest of the riders stayed and never caught up to us on the way back out.   It is nerve racking when you have a lot of riders passing you on narrow, dusty trails.   It is so beautiful out there that even if you don't see any wildlife its still worth the trip.

On the Way to Big Eye

 Our neighbors wanted to go for a 4wheeler ride so we suggested going out to the Kofa Wildlife Refuge.  We had tried this ride by ourselves but never made it to the Big Eye mine because we ran out of time.  The road we wanted was the road to the Castle Dome museum which is about a 40 minute drive from where we live in the foothills of Yuma.  We started out twenty minutes ahead of our friends knowing we would need extra time to get to the parking area where we can unload our 4wheeler to start the ride.   The road to the refuge starts out paved through the Yuma Proving Grounds and then turns to very wash board gravel.   We had to crawl over the wash board road because our truck rides so rough we get rattled to death.  We just got parked an unloaded when our friends caught up with us and they had stopped for gas.

We started the ride from the parking area at the kiosk for the refuge.  These are the first pictures I took.  The first one is Castle Dome peak and the second one is Thumb peak.  Our ride was going to take us all the way to the back side of thumb peak and then some.  It was a beautiful day with temps in the low 70's and not much wind.  It had rained a week or so before so it wasn't even dusty!

Salt & Cactus

 A friend of ours has a really cool cactus called a pencil cactus.  It doesn't have sharp spines like most cactus.  It is actually soft to the touch.  As it gets more crowded in its planter it will have more blooms.   There are so many kinds of cactus it is mind boggling and each one has something unique about it.  

We had new tires put on the 4wheeler and took it out to where we gold prospect.  We noticed right away that the new tires gripped the road better.  When we were out there I took a picture of the white stuff all over because it looked like snow.  We got a lot of rain and it seems to have made the salt rise to the surface.  The area we prospect in is close to the river and is where the salt deposits are more plentiful.  This area used to be part of the ocean and the salt was left behind when the water evaporated.  It will be awhile before the dirt is dry enough to go back to gold mining.   It is nice to have a little break  from digging and the weather is getting very nice so it is time to do more 4wheeling and exploring.