Jeep Touring Near Wickenburg

Sunset Jeep Tour

Take a bumpy, open-air ride to see cactus country

by Randy Summerlin photograph by Ken Ross

It's a cool October 1 afternoon when my son Leyton and I hop in the back of a Jeep to venture up the Hassayampa River's intermittently wet sandy bottom-a route that eventually takes us to a pair of unexpected desert surprises.

We leave from downtown Wickenburg, where in 1863 adventurous souls came seeking gold at the nearby Vulture Mine, as well as the ranching and farming bounties made possible by the Hassayampa's precious water.

Now, fun-seekers head upriver to hike or picnic in the high-walled canyon and the area's washes, rocky ridgelines, mountain valleys and wide-open desert country.

BC Tours offers 14 widely varying Jeep excursions all around Wickenburg, which likes to call itself the "Dude Ranch Capital of Arizona" and the very place where Vic Cedarstaff invented the bola tie in 1949.

We first pass an abandoned manganese mine and its black tailings, then wind through thickets of ironwood, tamarisk, mesquite and willow trees before grinding and bumping over the riverbed's fine "sugar sand," where the Jeep gears groan to avoid bogging down.

After about a half-hour, we come to a narrow side canyon that enters the main gorge from the west, guarded by the foundations of a cabin claimed long ago by the floods. We explore the narrow, slotlike passageway, half hidden by a shady forest of tamarisk trees.

After driving several miles into the main canyon, we backtrack and cut westward up a steep trail to the rim overlooking the river, all while listening to Cummings's expert commentary on every plant and geologic formation in sight.

"We love this desert," says Cummings, who helps lead the tours that last up to 13 hours. "We take people out here just for the pleasure and fun of showing off the natural beauty, and we want folks to learn to protect it and keep it clean."

We're here to explore Box Canyon north of Wickenburg, where the Hassayampa usually just trickles lazily along, and where sudden heavy downpours often produce flash floods.

Today, we're passengers in the high-mounted back seats of a topless Jeep with Wickenburg native Glenn Cummings at the wheel, while photographer Ken Ross rides along with Cathy and Mike Billingsley in their old-but-reliable restored Jeep as we four-wheel north up the riverbed.

We're on just one of many desert explorations sponsored by BC Jeep Tours, owned and operated by the Billingsleys, with the help of Cummings.

Deep into the desert, we encounter our first surprise, a giant multiarmed saguaro cactus dubbed by the tour guides as "The Arizona Highways Saguaro," which they guess to be more than 200 years old. This colossal specimen has so many arms we can't count them all-more than five is an estimated benchmark for perhaps two centuries of growth.

"We use that name for our guests just Because of its immense size, magnificent arms and the fact that it's sort of a desert emblem made famous by the magazine," says Mike Billingsley.

Even more impressive to me just a few hundred yards farther up the rocky road is our second surprise, the most awesomely tall saguaro I've ever laid eyes on. "We show everybody this thing," says Cummings, pushing gently against the cactus' base and pointing to the sway at the top. Very slow growers, saguaros can reach up to 50 feet. This one is, well, really big.

Satisfied by our unusual discoveries, we linger on the high ridgeline in the orange glow of sunset, then reluctantly tear ourselves loose to bump southward through the broad expanse of the Hassayampa's rivulets wending toward Wickenburg.

Our grumbling stomachs make us regret that our 12-mile, 2.5-hour tour hasn't included the campfire feast of hamburgers and steaks (accompanied by howling coyotes) featured on the deluxe back-road Jeep tours.

The cool evening air settling into the Hassayampa valley envelops us as we journey slowly in near-darkness back to tour headquarters in town. It's a fitting end to a leisurely jaunt upriver from Wickenburg that has demonstrated how those ranchers, farmers and gold-seekers found their own priceless surprises after planting themselves permanently in this desert oasis.

when you go

Location: Box Canyon of the Hassayampa River, north of Wickenburg.

Getting There: From Phoenix, drive north on Interstate 17 to State Route 74. Turn left (west) at Exit 223, and drive about 47 miles to Wickenburg. BC Jeep Tours headquarters is located in downtown Wickenburg. Call for an appointment.

Additional Information: BC Jeep Tours, (928) 6847901 or (928) 684-4982; www.bcjeeptours.com.

Where There's Smoke The Arizona State University Sun Devils were fired up on October 1, 2005, when they stunned the University of Southern California Trojans for the first half before USC came back to win and go on to the Rose Bowl. DON B. STEVENSON