The Dragoons Day 1

The simple requisite of new and close meant that the Dragoons were the place to start. Researching the area got me on Google. Of course, Scott and Lee were one of the first to explore the newer sections of this area; their trip report is here. Also, I found these two articles that help me nail down a route that was focused on the Dragoons.

The plan was to do the some of the classic 30ish mile outer loop of Dragoons, while searching for some new trail to link the Council Rocks and possible addition of a figure 8 for future use (that would use either Cochise Trail or Middlemarch Tr, possibly even Slavin #279 from east to west from FR 4388

With the route, we set off from Tombstone a little later than expected due to a delay on I-10. Our plan was to camp below the on any of the campgrounds between FR 687A and FR866.

 As we left town, two different people warned us of the "people" that are over in the dragoons. Classic. I love how the locals in this town think.

The first lady said "to make sure to have a gun because of the immigrants" and the second gentleman said to "watch out for the crazies."  We brushed off both saying that we familiar with camping in southern Arizona.

 While riding out to the camp spot, we probably got passed by 5-7 vehicles on Middlemarch Rd. Given the size of this dirt road, every car was not very friendly and blazed by us. If I were to do this route again, I would start up at city of Dragoon and stop by the Butterfiled Stage Station (see PDF here). The other plan, I would take the gas line road that that Simplissity did during his traverse. On the way back into town on Day 2, we did find a way to bypass the highway section of this route.

We got to the campsite, had some beverages and went to bed eagerly waiting for the singletrack on Day 2.