Stick a pin in Kingman! That’s right, grab a road map of Arizona, and stick a pin in Kingman. No, we’re not done, but if you can attach a string and pen to that pin, you can draw in a 40-mile radius around Kingman. In that 80-mile-diameter circle, there are over 5,000 square miles and literally hundreds of four-wheel-drive trails with thousands of scenic, technical, and fun miles on them. Many of the four-wheeling trails are so close to Kingman that most of us who live here don’t even bother to air up our tires anymore. We just leave them at trail pressure to save time when we want to go off-roading.

Within that 40-mile radius, you’ll even find the eastern trailhead of the famous and historical Mojave Road on the Nevada side of the Colorado River, near the Avi Casino & Hotel, just south of Laughlin, Nevada. But I’m not going to be talking about the Mojave Road; I’ll be talking about the trails fairly close to Kingman.

I’ve selected just six trails of the hundreds to provide an overview of what the countryside around Kingman offers four-wheelers. Most of the trails not included here can be found in Luis & Paula Vega’s 4 Wheel Drive & Back Roads of Mohave County, Arizona. The Vega books (other editions cover Yavapai, La Paz, and Yuma counties) include directions, GPS locations, trail descriptions, and in many cases a history of the areas covered by the trails—they are available on Amazon and in most bookstores in Mohave County.

I’ve also gone through my digital photo albums that I’ve taken in the 10 years I’ve wheeled in this county—over a thousand images—to pare them down to meet the space requirements here on Off-Road.Com. Some of the images of a particular trail might have been taken on several different trips through that trail; other images may come from just one trip over the route.

One other item: the Walapai 4 Wheel Club is headquartered in Kingman, and the club is hosting its annual Ghost Town Jamboree on April 12-14, 2013. If the descriptions and images in this article have intrigued you into thinking about wheeling in Mohave County, go to the club’s website at http://walapai4wheeler.proboards.com/index.cgi for more information and prices. (I’ll be doing an article on the jamboree; look for it here on ORC.)

Just a few items I’d like to cover before getting into the trail descriptions. Some of these trails pass through cattle country. These are working ranches, raising meat for our tables and Mickey Dees. So when you pass through a gate, leave it in the same condition that you found it. If it’s open, leave it open. If it’s closed, close it after you’ve gone through. When you visit please take only pictures and leave only footprints—or tire prints, in our case. Over the past decade that I’ve been visiting these areas I’ve seen a great deal of destruction and desecration to the various buildings, and it’s sickening. If you should come upon any cattle or wildlife, please slow down and if you have to drive near them, do it very slowly so that you don’t spook them.

Bull Run
Let’s start with a trail that isn’t in any book and its trailhead is right at the Kingman city limits. Go north on Stockton Hill Road, turn left on Camelback Blvd., and continue on when the pavement turns to dirt (on your right is Bull Mountain). The trail circles around to the west of Bull Mountain and then drops down into a dry and rocky streambed. It skirts the base of Bull to the north until the streambed widens out and then climbs east up through a canyon to a white quartz quarry. The trail flattens out at the mine and then continues upward and eastward through a notch and clings to side of a steep hill as it drops back down to Stockton Hill Road.

This is a year-round trail and all-weather—except in snow—and is rated a 3.5. It’s a very narrow, overgrown trail with some extremely tight turns; and it has some 4.0 bypasses for the more adventurous drivers. A JK with lockers can make Bull Run but it will get really scratched up from the brush.

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