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Bombing Range Offers Pristine Wilderness

Wednesday, 25 January 2012 16:21

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Southwestern Arizona has an unlikely outdoor getaway destination in the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range. Dotted with mesas, cholla and saguaro cacti, fields of wildflowers and pronghorn sheep, the range is split down the middle into eastern and western halves. The eastern half is close to the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, created to protect the native pronghorn, which is similiar to the North American antelope.

The recreation area, known as Area B in the eastern half, is reached from Tucson by getting off of I-8 West at Gila Bend and heading south on Route 85.  Before Mexico, you will reach the Gila Bend Air Force Auxiliary Field.  After watching a 15-minute video instructing visitors to avoid unexploded ordinances and smugglers, you can be off and on your way.

The recreation area access is broken into gates along Route 85.  Inside these gates, everything from dirt roads to some of the most verdant desertscapes in the Southwest are present.  Fields of impossibly yellow wildflowers blended with the greens of cacti and grasses to the orange of the rocky hill slopes all promise a new-gorgeous vista.

Some places require a four-wheel drive, high-clearance vehicle, but a sedan will get you to some pretty amazing places. Visitors to the recreation area are allowed to hunt, hike, photograph and camp with no fee.  Trying to take home unexploded ordinances or entering abandoned mines are not only dangerous undertakings but could get you slapped with a felony, according to base security.

To find out if planes will be flying over the recreation area, call:

56th Fighter Wing Range Management Office 
(623) 856-8516

For a map of a few things in the recreation area >Click Here

 

Written by Keith Perfetti You are reading Bombing Range Offers Pristine Wilderness articles

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