It’s Palooza Time! We had so much fun on our Patagonia Adventure last time, that we decided to try exploring the area a little closer to home. We packed up the Ranger and headed out to the Eastern Arizona Morenci area.

About three hours Northeast of Tucson and Phoenix is the little mining town of Morenci. It is almost on the New Mexico border. If you take the trip here, you wont be sorry. Take Hwy 191 to Morenci it turns into the Coronado Trail.

Just past Morenci, along the way. on the right, there will be a pull off to stop and look at the mine. Morenci mine is the largest open pit mine in North America. It looks like a man made Grand Canyon! They mine all sorts of metals here, but copper is the main stay.

We had to get a picture by the tire of one of the mine trucks. They are HUGE! I hear that one of those mine trucks can roll over a full sized truck with no problems at all!

Follow Highway 191 for 15 miles until just past mile marker 188. We parked right across the road from Upper Eagle Creek Road. We loaded in the Ranger and headed out.

There is an old bridge that we pulled off the road by and headed out to Sheep Wash.

The views here were of large valleys and tall rocky faced cliffs that looked like a rock climbers paradise.

There was an old building at the end of the road that called to have its picture taken. We could have gone farther if we went past the gate, but decided that this was a good turn around spot to head back to the main road.

Once we reached the creek area, we started to cross over the water. The creek snakes along over the dirt road many many times. We crossed the water over 50 times on our way to Saunders Cabin.

Along the way we saw a flock of wild turkey and this happy little deer. We also ran into several hunters scouting for deer and elk.

We followed the road to Honeymoon Campground. We stopped here to take in the view and eat our lunch. There are picnic tables and bathroom facilities available here.

The creek is so pretty and welcoming. We sat by the water and rested cooled off from the summer heat.

While the road had been flat and very very easy up to this point, the road to Saunders Cabin was far far from easy. We would cross the river and really have to look to find the trail on the other side. Sometimes it didn’t even look much like a road until we started going. It was rocky and steep and really lots of fun.

We finally had to stop due to the fall of so much debris. It seems as if there had been a flood and washed out the road and left huge piles of trees and brush that we couldn’t Palooza over. We turned around and called it good.

It was a wonderful day and took us about half a day to do the actual exploring. If you decide to take this adventure, please leave a comment and let us know how it goes! Better yet, please click the follow button and join us in the Palooza!

Until next time,