Crown King is an old mining town located about 40 miles north of Phoenix. Crown King is located at about 6000 feet elevation in the Bradshaw Mountains. The town was founded around 1875. There's not a lot left now, but the saloon and general store are still there and it has become a popular destination for 4-wheelers coming down from Prescott or north from Phoenix. You can reach Crown King by car if you go north on the interstate and then south through the forest roads. The real fun is using the trails that start at the north end of Lake Pleasant.

We headed out from Lake Pleasant at about 8:30 in the morning. The first hour were banging around the typical desert landscape. A lot of this area is open range. You run across a lot of old windmills that were used for pumping water to ponds for the cattle.

The trail is wide and dusty at first, but the trail is "maintained" by the County. Lots of desert flora. We did end up getting behind a bunch of guys in a Suzuki Samurai club. Had to let them get ahead of us or the dust was terrible. When we originally caught them, the trail had narrowed and there was too many to try and pass. 

We kept moving along. It's about a 15-20 minute ride to get to the spot where the trail splits. The Crown King trail goes north and the other trail continues west.

Of course you couldn't expect to do a desert ride without running across one shot up car! Because of the Suzuki's on the north trail, we decided to try and find the western trail. We came to a split and naturally, took the wrong one. We went about 4 miles before Donnie stopped and determined we were headed back to Castle Hot Springs. 

Back on course, we started to see the colors change. Even after 4 months of no rain at all in the valley, you do still run across some small running streams.

We came to another split in the trail, now only 17 miles from our destination. Some spots on the trail were a smooth sand where you could open the Rhino up and make some time. We decided to stop and check out one of the many old mines that are in this area.

The terrain was   getting a little rougher. One spot we had to go up a stream about 30 yards. This was probably the roughest part because of the large rocks we had to navigate around.

Once we started getting into the forest the weather was noticeably cooler. We saw a number of abandoned buildings through out the area.

We finally made it. We topped the tank off at the one gas pump in town. The saloon use to have a brothel upstairs, now it's 6 rooms for rent at 40 dollars a night. Downside? Only one bathroom to share. The back of the saloon is a small restaurant where we grabbed a burger. I don't know about some of the other items that might be on the menu!