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Come out Wickenburg Way to Box Canyon By: Lee Denmark AZOD Guest Writer
Last Saturday I took my family on a road trip to Box Canyon near Wickenburg. Box Canyon has a lot of amazing attributes. The first thing that you will notice is the breathtaking scenery and the tremendous amount of wildlife. Most people, when they think of the Arizona desert picture flat sandy hot barren land. When you arrive to what the locals like to call Box, you not only get to see things like cactus, mesquite trees and rattlesnakes, but also Cottonwood trees, and hills with cliffs. Best of all, 11 months out of the year, there is water, real flowing water from the Hassayampa River. As you travel through Box you might run into a mother javelina and her young, or if you are lucky you will see a deer or two. Further down is a Canyon where at times water spreads all the way across and gets 3 or 4 feet deep. The canyon offers something for everyone. My wife likes it because she can let our daughter play in a nearby stream that is about calf deep while she suntans on the lawn chair that she somehow manages to tie on the quad. My daughter likes it because there are lots of water bugs and she enjoys trying to catch them. And because she gets to drive daddy’s quad.
For me Box offers a variety of challenges, there is the straight climb up the side of the cliff in the trees. Once you get to the top of there is a whole new world to explore. There are also challenging dirt mounds that appear to be an easy task but you will soon learn that soft sand isn’t as easy as it looks. Then there is a cave to hike up to and investigate. The sand is perfect for a picnic, and the water is refreshing. The point is that Box has a touch of something for everyone, whether you are a gifted wheel man or a laid-back horseman. On this particular Saturday my wife and daughter decided to hang out while I went looking around. I am not sure what I was looking for, maybe it would turn out to be nothing, but I do know that every time we go to Box we see something different. This time I saw a skunk and a lot of birds, but mainly what I noticed was the trash. I read in the paper that there were several attempts to empty the trash out of the Canyon and I never thought twice until this visit. The amount of garbage that careless people have left behind is repulsive. There were empty soda and beer cans, beer boxes, and leftover bags from previous camping trips. The most horrific sight was the car that some foolish people had pushed off the ledge above and then smashed the windows out, tore it all to pieces and left there in the middle of the canyon. I have since determined that every trip I make out there I am going to bring two trash bags, one for my one garbage and one to help clean up other people’s garbage.
When I got back to my wife and daughter, both my girls had lunch ready, we had brought some sandwiches, chips and a lot of water. As we ate lunch and really took time to gaze around we saw a tree that neither of us had noticed before. It was a baby tree that had seeded itself along the river bed. The tree stood all alone with no trees nearby to shade it. My daughter took her water over and poured it onto the tree, she said it looked thirsty. We packed up our chips and gathered our garbage and made a decision to travel upstream for a while. We loaded the quads and took off. There were a lot of people out for a Saturday afternoon. After riding around for some time we decided that before making the trek home we would let our tomboy daughter play one last time in the chilly river. We stopped near where we had seen the toddler tree (as my wife called it) only to discover that it had been run over. There were tire tread marks running right over this little offspring of nature. My wife turned and said to me, “That’s just fine! They run over all the trees, and then complain because they want their children to enjoy what they did. But the beauty no longer exists because of discourteous people and their inconsiderate actions.” If you can’t tell, she gets excited about things easily. She had a point though. The sun was setting, and nothing is more spectacular than an Arizona sunset in the middle of the summer, but it was time to go home. We enjoyed the day, and recorded the memories leaving behind nothing that wasn’t already there. My family and I want to invite everyone out to Box Canyon, pack a cooler with some lunch and water, heck even bring Ol’ Fido out to play. Bring what ever strikes your fancy. But please don’t forget your trash bag when you come out Wickenburg Way!
Directions to Box Canyon from Phoenix
From Phoenix take US hwy 60 to Wickenburg. Turn onto 89/93 and go through the beautiful town of Wickenburg. After traveling approximately 2 miles you will reach Rincon Road. Turn right, continue down that road past the ranches until you reach the second river bed. Turn right and follow that right into Box Canyon. Four wheel drive isn’t a necessity, but an intelligent choice.
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