618 to Cedar Flats

The weather turned nice again pretty quickly this morning.  We knew it was "Road Trip Time" by mid-morning.  We scurried about as fast as possible and hit the road about 11:30.  We'd been talking about doing 618 to Cedar Flats and today was the day.  We couldn't have picked a better day to do it.  We saw one Jeep on 618 and only a grader on the Cedar Flats Road (214).  The Garmin shows we were out a little more than 2.5 hours and covered a little over 40 miles round trip "portal-to-portal," as they say.  We did go fill it up with gas to check out mpg and were both surprised to see the trip cost a mere $5 and netted a 26.39 mpg despite long periods in first and second gear.  Our total elevation gain for the day was 4,136 feet and we topped out at 5,986 feet when we came face-to-face with the grader blade. Click here for the interactive Google Map of today's trip.

Obviously, this close encounter brought out exploration of Cedar Flats to an abrupt end!  The grader's first pass had really torn up the road and it was very slow going.  That's what we bought the Zuki for--slow going on very rough roads.  We didn't get a chance to take any photos of the really roughs parts because it was too bouncy and we were both holding on tight.

 It's great up on top of the Cedar Flats mesa.  You can see forever practically anywhere.  You get to peer into West Clear Creek Canyon and ponder the Blodgett Basin Trail's precarious route down.  We scooted far enough ahead of the grader to enjoy a nice lunch at the lip of the Mogollon Rim.  The photo below shows the Cedar Flats Road as it skirts the top of Blodgett Basin.  The photo below that one shows a peek of the peaks in the background over Susun's left shoulder.  "Twas a mighty fine day for a leisure cruise in our backyard here.

Cheers!  J&S