Pick a Sunday in October to ride Cherry Creek Road!

A few pics of our ride today. About 300mi, much of it off pavement.

PatD and myself went up to scout FR203, Cherry Creek Road, to see if it was big bike friendly. The answer is, well, sort of...

I've done this route several times, but always with riders on smaller bikes. The road parallels the Young Hwy and skirts the east side of the Sierra Ancha Wilderness. It was pretty rocky in spots, but nothing crazy. I think a big bike rider with good skills could handle this fairly well. Here are a few pics:

PatD rolls under the canopy as we climb toward Young, AZ.

Lots of greenery, but surprisingly not much water running. I think there was more last time I was here in June.

All the recent rains have washed out a few spots

As this unfortunate truck driver learned the hard way, it is a long walk out. He was about 11 miles from the Young Hwy in a pretty rough area. Not going to be fun getting this one out. (We almost didn't see it due to the camo paint... )

We noticed one of his front tow hooks was already snapped off. The pics don't show how far down the bottom was below him, but he was very lucky it stopped here.

Farther up the road is a side spur I'd explored before.

There is a cabin down there that is one of these "Pack it in, Pack it out" use what you need, stay when you want places. I think it is owned by one of the nearby ranches according to some guys we met there on another trip. This trip it was unoccupied, so we went in and checked it out. I guess it is first come, first served as far as staying there goes. Here's Pat jimmying the lock...not really, the door is wide open.

The luxurious interior. They have a guest log for you to sign if you wish to stay.

The road into and away from the cabin. PatD and the 800GS enjoying the cool temps!

Lunch was at the Antlers in Young

From there, we cruised down thru the Haggler Creek area, and on into Payson. Then took the dirt road from west of the airport down to Rye and home. Sorry, got sick of taking pics by this time!

For a big GS, there were a few rocky sections that could be a handful, but otherwise should be ok. Just allow plenty of time and don't go alone as it is a long walk out!

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beemerdons said:

Thanks for your interest radiummadman and AVGeek, I am very glad to see that we have manly man dirt bike riders here on our fine FJR Forum; not just a pack of big street pussies, WORD!

I also have this posted over at AZ Beemers, I get back from Oregon in a week and will give a definite date, kickstands up time and an exact departure point on 9/22!

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Sounds good Don. I'll have a marked up copy of the Tonto Nat Forest map showing the route.

If you don't have a copy of that map, I recommend getting one as it is a great resource for forest service roads etc. I got mine at Wide World of Maps https://www.maps4u.com

The Prescott Nat Forest map is also a good one to have.

Sorry, I have no GPS tracks.

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Sunday 12/19/10' date=' SeaBee1 and I went for an exploration ride North of Roosevelt Lake. We didn’t really have a goal in mind other than to see if we could take Cherry Creek Road all the way to Young. On these rides though, we purposely get sidetracked and go off on tangent trails just to see where they go.[/color'] 

We hauled the bikes via Globe and parked on Cherry Creek Road just off AZ 288 (Young Hwy). We started a little later than usual to let the sun warm things up a bit. I think we actually started riding at about 10:30am.

 

 

Cherry Creek Road, aka FR203, is a nice road all the way to Ellis Ranch. It was nice and cool, and the previous days rains meant NO dust!

 

The first water crossing (got a little excited!)

 

 

And here’s Don on the second water crossing. I bet we had 12 or more water crossings over the course of the day.

 

 

Just past Ellis Ranch, Don splashed through a crossing and he scared a red fox out of a wood pile just ahead. Mr. Fox took one look at me and decided to run off into the woods. I got a pretty good look at him, but no chance for a picture.

 

This next crossing was a surprise in that it was much deeper than it looked. We made it through no problem, but it was pretty deep.

 

 

The road gets somewhat rough after the ranch, but mostly just because of loose rocks. There are some cliff dwellings back there I’d like to hike up to sometime.

 

 

I think they were at the base of these cliffs

 

 

A nice spot for a break.

 

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The road was slick in spots as it had rained either earlier in the day or overnight. Some spots looked dry, but were slick, others looked wet but were sticky. Go figure. Enough mud to keep your attention, and to punish you if you relaxed too much.

 

 

As we climbed, we got into different trees, and the road was covered in leaves, even though the trees still had some on them. There were many scenes like this.

 

 

And the clouds settled in on the mountain tops. We had just enough exertion to not notice the temperature was dropping. We figured if the rains let loose, we could make our way to Young Hwy and take the easy way back. They never did, thankfully, but it was clear we hadn’t missed rain by much.

 

 

Don was leading when he passed a little road off to the right. He skidded to a stop and spun around to head down this trail, so I followed along. We soon came to a gate, so we had a conference. Stick to the original trail, or try this one for a while. Curiosity overcame us, so we opened the gate and went on down the road.

 

Right away was another water crossing, and as we crossed we saw a cabin on the left with some guys milling around the outside. We rode on toward them and one came out to meet us. Nice enough chap, apparently a hired hand at the Cherry Creek Ranch, and he was down here with a fencing crew. They had been staying here all week he said, and were getting ready to head out. I asked about the cabin, if we were on private property or what, and he said this is one of those cabins anyone can stay at, first come, first served, FREE! Cool place to hang out. Turns out this was the end of that trail, FR2812. Here is Don coming out through the little water crossing. (Super short video, click on the image.)

 



 

FR203 will lead you back out onto the Young Hwy (288), or you can branch NE on FR329 to continue on the back roads. Much better! I think this old jalopy was on the 329 not long after we started up that road.

 

 

FR329 is a fun road, definitely has enough variety to keep it interesting. Here we strayed off onto a goat trail of some kind that was really soft sand/dirt mix. Turned out to be a rather short detour, but fun enough that we went up and down a couple times. Here’s Don on the trail, all those tracks are ours as we were blasting around back there for a few minutes.

 

 

Onward we went, as we were still a ways from Young and the afternoon was aging.

 

FR329 ends at the intersection with FR54, so we took 54 N. This road was really a fun one! Lots of ups and downs, sweeping views, beautiful! A ways in we hit fresh fence and all kinds of “No trespassing” signs. Looks like the fencing crew we met had been busy around here. Pretty sure they’re going to put a gate here, but not sure if it will end up locked. If so, that’s a pity because this road is a blast! We stayed on the road, but it crossed the private property for about 100yds. We just couldn’t turn around yet!

 

 

A couple more water crossings, and we came to a fork in the road. The one we thought we should take was labeled 3004, even though we thought we were looking for the FR913. Since we weren’t sure, better check my GPS, (Generic Positioning Sheet, er, map).

 

 

We soon came to another intersection, this time with a sign to Cherry Creek Lodge to the left and, we assumed, Young to the right. We went left to check out the lodge. They had a nice sign so we’d feel welcome.

 

 

And then another one to tell us to go away.

 

 

So, we didn’t go in to see the so-called lodge and instead headed on into Pleasant Valley. It was getting colder now, about 3pm, so it had taken us 4 ½ hours to travel the 62 miles from the trucks. Time to bolt back down the Young Hwy before sundown.

 

It was pretty cool all the way down the mountain until Roosevelt was back in sight. Near the bottom of the hills, there is a decrepit old cabin that I’ve always wanted to have a look at. We stopped for a couple of pictures here before heading back to the trucks.

 

 

They had a heck of a view at one time.

 

 

Don even found a rattle, glad the other end was missing!

 

 

Once back at the trucks with about 102 miles logged in, it was time for a brewskie!

 

 

Another great AZ winter ride!

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Great pictures guys, I need to go there!

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beemerdons said:

Bump Reminder!

One week from today we Manly Men of the Southwest FJR Forum will be tackling the Cherry Creek Trail in the Tonto National Forest with our dirt bikes, be there or be square!

If you need more info please contact Don Stanley at either 480-440-4666 or [email protected]

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Here's some more pix from the ride.

There's a lot of water crossings on this ride. This is the first one.

This is the biggest one. 

Ellison Ranch is a working ranch.  There's also a few private homes around this area.

I guess these folks pay for road maintenance on the south side, because after this, the easy road ends.

As you go north, Cherry Creek gets smaller and in a deeper canyon.  On the west is the Sierra Ancha mountains.

The road runs along the side of the Sierra Ancha's, gaining altitude as you go.

There's Cherry Creek.

There's some cliff dwellings on the side of the Sierra Ancha.  It's apparently about a 2-3 hour hike to get to them.

They're back in that canyon.

The road is rough around the cliff dwelling area.  Here's a nice flat spot to take a break on.

Looking up at the Sierra Ancha's.  This is looking west.

And back at the way we came.  This is looking south, the road is along the right.

Each notch in the walls of the Sierra Ancha's has a spring. 

As you go along the face, the road will curve into the mountain, and there will be a hairpin at the back of a notch canyon.

Each of these has a little spring fed water crossing. 

It would be very idylic and relaxing, except for all of the rocky road way on the faces of the mountains.

That's all I took !   Sorry, no pix on the rough stuff.

Too busy saying "Don't crash" to take pix.

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dcarver said:

Looks like a great and fun ride!

I say someone needs to conquer it on an FJR..

Hey Don, Lucy LIu is ready for u?

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Here's some more pics of Papa Chuy's Birthday Ride. Great day of riding with good friends, food, fun and absolutely perfect weather! It don't get no better than this, Boys and Girls!

https://s979.photobucket.com/albums/ae278/BearTrax_Adventures/Papa%20Chuys%20Bday%20Cherry%20Creek%20Ride%202012%20Oct%2028/?albumview=slideshow

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About a 300 mile dirt ride last Saturday, was to be an overnight camping ride but all decided to make it a day trip. Similar to Cherry Creek, a bit rocky in spots with a few creek crossings. Great fun!

~Bear

https://s979.photobucket.com/albums/ae278/BearTrax_Adventures/Salt%20River%20Canyon%20ride/?albumview=slideshow

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