Half of our team is living it up in Germany with friends so the other half decides to explore near Phoenix the Sunset rest area and find a few caches in the area. They are on the other side of the rest area proper so we enter the dirt roads and then park before starting the exploration of the area. It is quite a wild area even though it is close to the rest area with flowering cacti everywhere.
It is a nice trail that leads to some nice overlooks of the Agua Fria River canyon where a few cacehs can be found. The views are special but soon it is time to move on to search for the next cache.
Following the cliffside soon another cache is reached with a nice view of a remaining pool of water in the riverbed, the river is not flowing anymore this time of year. And there are electricity wires crossing the canyon for some reason, there is nothing there so no idea where they are going.
There is also a surprise on the way, the marked and locked Berryhill Water Storage Tank, not sure why this tank specifically is locked because other ones we have seen are not.
And now looking back towards the rest area smoke is spotted which leads to a bit of stress, how safe is this area and how fast will the fire spread? Especially with helicopters flying overhead, they don’t do that unless it is something serious.
So the exploration is cut short returning to the rest area to look at the fire which is now quite a bit more impressive. There are news crews already here and the fire will get a name in due time, the Gladiator Fire and it will destroy over 16K acres of forest starting from a residential fire being one of the largest in Arizona history. But at least our team is safe as the explorer return home before any impact to the interstate after an exploration cut short unexpectedly.
