Larry had worked for the man who bought my grandfather's water holes when he gave up his ranch in 1945. Susanna wanted Larry to go with us, but Larry said, "I can't take that road anymore. I just can't take that road." Later that morning we understood. When we got back to Larry's the next evening to retrieve the rental car, I know Larry regretted missing the trip.
Susanna led our little caravan from Vicksburg through the wilderness area. It was her job to ride the route at least monthly. Susan, Mom, and I rode with Susanna, while her assistant, Debbie, (with Susanna's daughter, 12) drove a sweep truck in the rear. We came into the refuge on Pipeline Road, which is a right of way road for power transmission lines from the Salt River plant outside Phoenix to Los Angeles. This right of way follows an older gas pipeline right of way, and is an excellent gravel road, especially when compared with the rest of the roads on the reserve. As soon as we turned off the Pipleline Road, the road was a rocky track.
The first cabin we visited on the refuge was the stone Kofa cabin. That cabin was a whole another story, a story of the depression and the CCC.
Jack Wilbank's grandaughter, Cindy
Along the way, Susanna needed to check each watering place. Our first stop was at New Water Well at the edge of the New Water Mountains. Larry Keeling told me that all of the wells were originally dug by hand by miners. He said that the Wilbanks Well was the shallowest at around 35 feet deep. At each well, Susanna made her necessary inspection of a windmill and a water hole. We passed Owl Head rock formation, and stopped at Wilkenson's seep. The Ranger brought sandwich fixings and drinks and brownies cooked by herself. Wilkinsins's seep is a natural spring. The water was not readily visible but cat tails were. With some difficulty my sister climbed down rocks and felt actual water.
After lunch, and a cowboy joke from Uncle Eldree, we drove to the Kofa monument which was restored in 1989 for the re-dedication of the refuge. My mother and sister Barbie talked about the ceremony in 1989 where their mother Martha was honored and recognized for her remarkable life as a 20th century pioneer. The stone monument, a large cairn, was originally erected in 1939 when the the land was named the Kofa Game Ranch. (Our grandparents moved to the Kofas in 1931). My mother and father were together at the 1989 dedication, as well as Mom's sister Barbie and Uncle Eldree. Everyone remembered that they had driven the roads, but the dignitaries had been carried in by helicopter.
The rental car (and most vehicles) would never have made it over Wilbanks Road even if our lives depended on it.
The road was steep and rough, rocks over bedrock, and took us over Big Horn pass.
Some sections could not be made easy, but in general the roads are purposely left rough to keep most people out. Susanna called this factor of roughness the Winnebago filter. We then descended into the Hoodoo wash. Near the wash stood the old wooden Wilbanks cabin.
Wilbanks' cabin
View through the window screen
An hour or two later, most of the people in our party left, to return to their homes in Arizona. They could have all stayed for lasagna cooked over a campfire, but they wanted to get out before dark. The place got very quiet. Susan, Debbie and Tara climbed one of the mountains near the cabin and wouldn't come down from the peak.
My mother walked a short distance with me up the wash. Then I climbed just far enough behind the cabin to see Squaw Peak, a landmark about two miles from the cabin.
Squaw Peak at sundown, behind the Wilbank's cabin
Besides Susanna, our hosts were Leroy and Gloria Iverson, a wonderful retired couple from Minnesota who had been camping all winter in this wild place while they volunteered for the Dept of the Interior. They had been restoring my grandparents house, as exactly as possible, the whole season.
My sister and I slept on the porch of the house in sleeping bags, in cots. My mother slept in her old bedroom. The sun fell and a breezy ninety degree afternoon became a fifty degree night. The windmill turned almost constantly, lifting water from the well with each turn, a comforting sound. The cabin faced east. We watched the full moon rise.
Windmill at Wilbanks well from a sleeping bag on a cot on the porch of the cabin.
That night and the next day was wonderful until the time we left the cabin. It was incredible. I don't even have time to talk about it. My sister and I were most unhappy to leave the next afternoon. We were cheered up by the sight, between the Wilbanks cabin and King Well, by a big horn sheep. The junior male bounded away a distance, and then posed for pictures.
We left Wilbanks cabin on the road through the Hoodo wash, past King Well (where Susanna didn't have to stop because the Iversons checked that waterhole). Except for a difficult section called Red Rock Pass, the way we went out was relatively easier than Wilbanks Road. We drove the wash and then a road which didn't exist when my Grandparents lived there. At Hoodoo Well we stopped to see Larry Keeling's old cabin, which now has a sign above the door that says "Hoodo Hilton".
We did want to get out by nightfall, and hoped that the others had gotten home safely the previous day. We left by the Kofa Manganese Road, drove over Red Rock pass, past Craven well, and we completed our loop back onto the Pipeline road and back to the Vicksburg house.
Every one wondered where Hoodoo came from. Larry Keeling told me the next day that there were several ideas, one of them being that my Grandfather, Jack (Jesse Wilbanks), said it was a hoodoo to get to it.
Jack Wilbanks' daughters on the porch the Wilbanks cabin
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