Diablo Mountains

Had seen this area when I rode to Buenos Aires from the Arivaca Highway on Batamote road and wondered what was over there. Then I saw some posts from other riders about some "Hunter Access Road" and so decided to give it a shot.

The starting point is just west of the Border Patrol CP on I-19. There is a frontage road on the west side of the freeway and you see the Hunter Access sign and turn in and just park right there.

Pretty straightforward riding, I did this in two parts, going about 10 miles and then turning around the first day and then the next day going to Arivaca and heading east from there to where I got the previous day, that piece was about 28 miles, starting from the Arivaca Community Center out and back.

The country is so dry right now, we need rain badly. #megadrought

Climbing up from the start

Rough country on either side of the road

After the pass ... turnaround point

Baboquivari ( zoomed in )

On the way back to start .. Elephant Head shows 

Grove of cottonwoods is protected from the ATV's

Day 2 rolling from Arivaca .. still in what passes for suburbia down there

Sign in here

Riding along, pretty good road 

Solar powered windmill

Where we turned around the day before

Same area different view ( you can see this from Arivaca Highway if you look in the right place )

Hola vaca's

Cienega Creek from the North

Another exploration of the area to the east of the Empire Mountains on Sun, Dec 27.  I just wanted to get all the way to Cienega Creek and back from Old Sonoita Highway and it worked out pretty well.

Parked on Old Sonoita about 1.4 miles from the Highway 83 intersection, there's a wide spot there. Pulled the bike out and rolled back down the hill to where the ATV people park, through the AZ State Land gate and south we went.

The first part is all rollers and rollers, then it flattens out a little bit. It's just miles of pretty empty country back there with the occasional ATV. For a Sunday it was really pretty empty. Maybe one ATV in the morning and two or three in the afternoon as I was heading back, so not too bad.

The whole thing was rideable, even for me, except for one or two wash descents that I walked down and tried to climb out of on the other side but stalled. 

Got to the sheets of metal hanging in the middle of Cienega creek, had a little something to eat and headed back. Ended up with about 5 hours of riding more or less, 3700 feet of climbing and 25 miles. Think it's on Strava at  https://www.strava.com/activities/4527245912 

Empire foothills