A Trip on Apache Trail in Arizona

A Trip on Apache Trail in Arizona

Wednesday, 2013-4-17

We left Tucson after lunch, and arrived in Phoenix at 3 pm to get a new Jeep Grand Cherokee from a rental

company. It was rush hour when we left the airport, but the traffic was not too bad. We took HW #60 going west to cross the city. The first stop in my plan was to visit Mt Superstition at Apache Junction near Phoenix. I saw the sign of Lost Dutchman State Park which I had read, and decided to follow that sign. Instead of going to climb up the mountain, we ended up driving around its northern skirt. But soon I saw the road sign HW #88, that was the scenic road Apache Trail that I was planning to take. So I decided to continue. We stopped at a tourist attraction of an old gold mining town. I was not sure if it was a real town or something built for the tourists. But it offered the best view of the majestic Superstition Mountain with its many jagged eroded pinnacles forming its peak.

We left at 5:45 pm. The late afternoon sun was still bright, and I was not fully prepared of what was coming

ahead. Without any hesitation, I decided to continue. The scenery became hillier, and we saw many beautiful and majestic mountains with eroded rocky peaks. They were very photogenic. We stop again at 6 pm on the road side with a gorgeous view of the far away mesa. There was a US Geodetic Survey bench mark but the number had been damaged and erased by vandalism. We arrived at a look out not far down the road, and saw Canyon Lake which was the third lake downstream after Salt River was dammed, and stopped at 6:17 pm to take the gorgeous photos of the surrounding hills. The sun was really low and reaching the top of the surrounding mountains. We turned around a small hill and descended onto the shore of the lake. We passed the southern arm of the lake and entered into a flat area. There were some stores and restaurants at Tortilla Flat. It was 6:40 pm and was quickly getting dark. I was hoping that we could find some accommodation but there was none. And the restaurant was closed. At 6:54, we saw a sign for the beginning of unpaved road for 22 miles until we arrived at Roosevelt. If I knew the road condition ahead, I would have turned back.

The gravel road started not far after we passed the junction with a small road called North Apache

Trail. The road wiggled as it traveled on the slope from one hill to another. It forms a large "W" shape. We stopped at our last rest area located at the left middle arm of the "W". The look out provided a good view of the a deep canyon or gorge. There was also cemented trails along the edge of the gorge. It must be one of the popular spot on this road. The wind was blowing strong and it was getting dark, I had no mood to enjoy the scenery. There was a small sedan on the parking lot, and its passengers were a young couple with a small girl. I had seen this car and its passengers when we were stopping at a previous look out for Canyon Lake. I talked to the driver trying to find out some road information, but he didn't like to talk much, and I gave up. I later saw him driving back to where we had come from. My mind was already set, and I failed to take this sign and follow him. Instead I continued on.  I suggested to Ching that we stayed overnight in the parking lot but she declined.

The gravel road was well groomed and the SUV had a high clearance, and I was not worried.

Occasionally, we hit some ripples on the road surface, and rattled the car. I just have to slow down to dampen the vibration. After 7 pm, all photos taken by Ching while the car was moving were not good due to the lack of light. We passed another lake upstream, Apache Lake, created by the damming of Salt River. We didn’t stop and continued. The road became very narrow as we wound through endless sharp turns. It was dark and I didn’t see the steep and deep ravine beside the road, and I relied completely on the guidance by the yellow reflective light along the road. I was worried if there was another car coming from the other direction, the road would not be wide enough, and in case if I had to back up to maneuver it would be impossible in the dark. Ching kept feeding me with chips and other snacks to keep me awake.

At last we were back on asphalt road, and soon passed the Roosevelt Dam. We were close to Roosevelt

town and saw a lot of lights in front of us. I expected to find foods and accommodation there. We stopped at the only store which still had light, but they had closed. One cleaning staff told us that there was a resort motel not far down the road. We went there and found that it was also closed. We had no choice but be back on the road. There was also no service until we reach Globe. We were happy to find a new Travel Lodge , but it was full. The owner told me that there were some smaller motels a few miles down the road. We finally settled in an older Knight Inn.

I was glad that I was strong enough to handle this difficult situation, and managed to stay late to do a little work on the computer. I learned from the Internet that the unpaved section of the road was not suitable for some recreational vehicle, and I didn’t understand why a SUV had been included in the list. I remembered of seeing a group of cheerful young men in safari jeeps  waving at us, they must have joined this instead of driving their own cars. I then saw a few cars parking on the wider section of the road side. So some people did stay overnight on the road.

Thursday, 2013-4-18

We slept well, and after breakfast, we went back to Roosevelt by Apache Trail (HW #88) to see

things that we had missed last night. We first took the side road Globe-Young Highway (HW #288) to the Salt River which flowed into Roosevelt Lake. There were plenty of trees along the road to the river.  When we arrived in the river bank, we saw 5 people fishing. They were serious fishermen as they camped overnight there fishing. From the road cut, it revealed that the ground was made of boulders and rocks, and there were many of them washed down to the river bank. It should be a good place to look for some rocks. I spent some time searching but could not find any interesting rocks.

We went back to the main Road HW #88 and stopped at a lookout for Tonto National Monument. It

was the ruin of a cave dwelling used by Salado Indian 700 years ago which was situated high on the cliff. From the lookout looking southeast, we saw two large caves. One had the shape of an inverted bowl, and its opening consisted of two layers. The inside one was only half of the external opening and it was filled with a complex dwelling with partition walls seemed to be still in good shape. This dwelling wascalled the Upper Cliff Dwelling. The other one was to its right (north), and look like an inverted deep plate. It was located only at half the height of the first

cave. It was probably too shallow to set up a permanent resident. There were more caves near the top of a different hill at its left (south). We pulled out from the look out and drove a short distance of half a km northwest, and we were surprised to find another cave very close to the left of the larger one with ruins. This one was also shallow but was deep enough for other usage other than dwelling. We didn't see this cave from the previous look out because the view was blocked by a hill in front of it.

We turned into the road going to the visitor center of Tonto National Monument. At the parking lot

of the center, we saw another pair of caves. The one on the left (south) was slightly bigger and there was a ruin inside. The other one looked empty. With the help of a zoom lens, we could see stone walls protecting the entrance to the cave, and some remaining structures built of stones of the dwelling. This was called the lower Cliff Dwelling. The dwelling, however, was much smaller than the Upper Cliff Dwelling that we saw on the roadside lookout. The ruin was also more damaged as only a smaller number of walls were visible. The size of the cave was big enough to accommodate 20 or more people. Therefore, It was likely used by a village rather than just for one family. The cave was high near the top of a flatten hill, and it must be hard to climb

up and down to their farm land near the bank of the Salt River. They chose to settle on this inconvenient place probably due to the frequent flooding of the river. There were many saguaro cacti and other vegetation on the slope of the hill. Which could  provide some foods for the native dwellers. The trail to the lower cliff dwelling was paved and 1 miles round trip and would take one hour. The trail to the upper cliff dwelling was unpaved and 3 miles round trip and would take 3 to 4 hours. Furthermore, it was opened on for guided tour from November to April. From the parking lot, we saw tourists were climbing up the trail with railing to see the ruin, but Ching didn’t want to.

The Theodore Roosevelt Lake was created by a dam bearing the same name. It blocked the

southward flow of the Salt River. To the southeast, it occupied 16 km of Salt Riverd , and to the northwest, it inundated up to 13 km of the Tonto River, a tributary of Salt River. We saw the beautiful Roosevelt Lake Bridge soon after we passed the marina on the lake. It was a two-lane, single- span, steel arch bridge with a span of 329 m which was the longest in North America for its kind. HW #188 passed the bridge and continued to run northwest. We turned left (south) before the bridge to enter HW #88, the Apache Trail, and  stopped at Roosevelt Dam not far

from the bridge. It was an arch-gravity dam 369 m long and 109 m height. The crest width was 6.6 m. The dam was fully light when we passed it last night. I was under the impression that it was much larger. The road cut showed that large chunk of granite rocks had been cut from the hill to build the road and the dam. We saw the road made a hairpin turn and then started its journey along the Salt River.

ApacheTrail made a hairpin turn immediately south of the dam

HW #188  south of Roosevelt Lake