Our announced destination was the east end of Sheep Bridge via the road on the east side of the Verde River. Those on the outing were Trail leaders Jerry and Nancy Grout with guest Elsie Tennant, Mike and Barbara Williams with Marv and Marsha Jeck as passengers, Bill and Jo Strong, and Sid and Maxine White with guests Jerry and Maxine Walters.
Sheep bridge originally was built by sheep raisers who herded their flocks from the Phoenix valley area to high country for the summer and back in the fall to winter in the Valley. The main trail crossed the Verde River, and the bridge was built to avoid mortality of sheep in crossing. The original suspension bridge became weakened with age and the State built a new steel suspension bridge a few years ago. This year, for the first time, no herder is driving sheep to the high country. Now they are bring trucked. Sheep Bridge probably will never see another sheep!
From the Horseshoe Dam road, Jerry found the road to ford the Verde River a couple of miles south of Horseshoe Dam. As we crossed this body of flowing water, we all thought that the crossing was a “piece of cake”. But then we encountered the second crossing below, not so easy. No driver had the intestinal fortitude to try to cross it. There was too much water flowing too fast.
So we turned around and visited Horseshoe Dam. There was no water behind the dam; all of the Verde River was being allowed to flow through to be stored in Bartlett Lake downstream a few miles.
Our lunch stop was in a broad wash off the Horseshoe Dam road. It is amazing how fast we can get a fire going and set up the tables for the potluck lunch.
Here is a wider view of our lunch stop.
In the lower left is a Crowned Saguaro, said to be rare. Something has happened to the plant so that instead of growing taller, more growth causes the top to spread out.
After returning to the Bartlett Dam road we headed toward Carefree, to turn off and drive down the Camp Creek wash a few miles. When we reached the bottom, here was a developed area (Needle Rock)on the Verde River. This is very popular in the summertime for water recreation. This time of year the water is far too cold for wading. From here we continued south through the Ft. McDowell reservation to Bush Highway and home to Mesa.
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