ATV 4

It’s been a Zillion Years (~25) since I have been to Crown King. This seems like the perfect time of the year, not too hot, not too cold. Or journey started just south of Bumble Bee and passed through the small town (?) of Cleator. I guess this is supposed to be a ghost town ?,,, but people live here ??? Ok they have a bar that’s open.

As you can guess we passed on Cleator but did find a nice little shaded area to take a break about ½ way up. The ride up will take us from the lower desert about 2500 feet to just over 7500 feet. Not many places that you can get an altitude change of 5000 feet !

As you can see from the pictures below these are mostly barren mountains on the way up but does offer some spectacular view. It’s what you make out of the ride. I think some famous person said something about Arizona like “if you don’t like the scenery drive another 15 minutes” I think this ride will cover a few of the major groups ,,, except beaches.

When we got to Crown King we were guided by Jim to “The Saloon”, great food, not too pricey. The picture on the left gives you a good feel for the type of client tell they cater to, jeeps, ATVs etc. The picture on the right shows our line up, 7 ATVs. This ride included my wife Connie, Glenn and his soon to be wife Kate, Jim and his wife December and brother Roland.

Time was running out so we did the safest thing that always seems to work out for us “head for the nearest lookout tower”

I mentioned above that this ride with the extreme altitude change would cover everything but beaches. Correct me if I’m wrong but that is Lake Pleasant in the distance. Lake Pleasant does have a BEACH !

The picture to the left shows just how vast these mountains are, row after row. Glenn thought they looked like ocean waves coming in, I guess they do!

Before heading back we thought a Hot Chocolate was in order to warm us up after the snow. It was actually a good excuse to visit the other well know restaurant in town “The Mill”. They actually have part of an old hammer mill inside the restaurant and lots of old mining artifacts around the grounds. It was worth the visit and very different than “The Saloon”

This was a really nice ride up to the Crown King area. I would recommend if you take the main road do it on a week day, it was busy on a weekend. I have conflicting stories on coming up from Lake Pleasant. 1) Many people get hurt bad on roll over’s, not good! 2) They bulldozed a new road so the fire engines could respond to forest fires ?? unconfirmed ! Many years ago I did it and it was a #@$%$#,,, but that’s when I was young and stupid. No mater how you get to Crown King I see many riding opportunities like taking the Senator Highway (fire road) to Prescott.