Red Rover trip - AZ 6/1/07

toddz69

Explorer
There was another thread around here recently on the Red Rover Mine but I couldn't seem to find it tonight so I'm posting a separate trip report here.

While everyone else was in Baja, I decided to head out and see if I could find the Red Rover Mine. Seemed pretty straightforward but I didn't know how many locked gates, etc. I would find.

Friday was a day off from work so my buddy Rob in his '04 Disco joined me so we'd have 2 vehicles. Got a good start after an early dentist's appointment and headed north. No vehicle traffic on the Seven Springs Rd. other than a Ranger's truck right after we left pavement.

Turned right on FR 254 shortly after the turnoff to Golf Ball Mountain (aka Humboldt Mtn.). Soon after you turn onto FR 254, you're faced with a "Y". We took the right fork and traveled what turned out to be a very smooth, well-traveled road back into the mountains. I believe it was about 5 miles long, which matched the mileage listed in Thelma Heatwole's book.

We got to a point on a ridge where we could see a new house off to the left on the ridge and a "No Trespassing" sign and a For Sale sign together beside the road. I'm never quite sure with these signs sometimes - they're either referring to the land behind the sign or the road ahead depending on how they're angled. I usually assume the former and watch for flying lead as I go onward.

Another quarter mile or so and we came to a locked gate - obviously the Red Rover straight ahead and the road to the new house on the ridge to the left. Both had locked gates and stern, multiple "No Trespassing" signs, which we of course obeyed. While we were there, a 2WD Chevy truck came up the road and went through the gate to the new house. A friendly wave - they were workers from Phoenix working on the house, which is new and has obviously been built since the fire 2 years ago. What we could see of Red Rover kinda sorta matched what you might expect after seeing it on ghosttowns.com but I have a hunch most of the old buildings were down over the ridge out of sight. Apparently the whole "town"/mine area is for sale for $250K. I found a post after I returned on the ghosttowns forum from 2005 that said all the goodies shown on the ghosttowns website is now downtown at the Mining and Minerals Museum.

We turned around and headed back and took the other fork of the "Y" we encountered earlier. It went north several miles before dead-ending at a gate (open) which lead to a fairly large house (there are actually two buildings there) with solar panels on the roof. There were vehicles there and somebody was there so we stayed out.

Instead, we decided to hike north up a ridge and see if we could find Red Rover from the west or the south. A good grunt up the ridge and according to our GPS we were still a mile or two south and west of the mine itself. We could make out the outline of a travel trailer and one other white object in the distance but decided to turn around to the heat and the fact that we didn't have any food with us and it was nearing lunchtime. A nice bonus was that we found what I think is a fairly large Indian ruin on top of the ridge and some pretty flowers and rocks.

The fire burned through this area but I think the Red Rover was spared intact. It was interesting to see the patterns of how things burned. It was obviously moving fast through this area and buildings/riparian areas in the bottom of canyons weren't touched.

We headed back and had a very late lunch at Harolds in Cave Creek before calling it a day.

Todd Z.
 

SOAZ

Tim and Kelsey get lost..
great trip! can you specify where in az this was a little more?:arabia:
 

toddz69

Explorer
SOAZ said:
great trip! can you specify where in az this was a little more?:arabia:

Head north on the Seven Springs Road (guess that's the proper name?) out of Carefree like you're headed to Seven Springs and Bloody Basin. Right before you start heading into the twisties and dropping into the canyon where Seven Springs is located, FR 254 will be on your right. You cross a little wash right after leaving the main road and you'll see a carsonite sign with the number on it. Go back that road and you'll find all this stuff.

HTH,
Todd Z.
 

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