We left the Phoenix area and headed over to Mesa and picked up Hwy 87,
the
Beeline Highway,
which leads through the mountains up to the
town of Payson. As we traveled, we crossed from one climate zone into
another. We left the giant saguaros behind and saw a lot of juniper and
pinon pine by the time we reached Payson, which is up where the ponderosas
begin.
As we approach Payson, you can see the
Mogollon Rim
ahead.
This escarpment, which runs for hundreds of miles across the middle
of the state, is the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau.
Here are some pictures I took at the
Payson airport.
The Crosswinds Cafe
has a "million dollar view" of the Rim.
Here we are back in Payson. The road ahead leads back to
Phoenix, and the road going left heads east to Heber and Show Low.
The town was a lot bigger than I thought it
would be. In fact it's been growing considerably
over the last several years.
The Mazatzal Mountains were on the west, and ahead we came to the
turnoff south for the Tonto Basin.
Jakes Corner.
This is a tiny community not too far off the main road.
The store here has lots of fishing equipment and related items.
More fun stuff to see at Jakes Corner.
There's a big arched bridge ahead. It turns out that's where the dam is.
This is Theodore Roosevelt Dam.
(Links:
1
2
3).
You can see two different types of construction here.
The lower part of the back of the dam was the 1911 original,
and the upper part and the whole front are the newer retrofit from the 1990s.
Looking back at the Roosevelt Lake Bridge from the scenic overlook at the dam.
That's N7JY in the blue shirt standing near his bright red car.
This is the historic
Apache Trail through the Superstition Mountains.
About 40 miles of it is dirt road, starting at Roosevelt Dam
all the way to Tortilla Flat.
It is a very narrow and winding dirt road that probably hasn't
changed all that much from the 1920's.
This is an incredibly scenic area and well worth the drive. It took a real long time though, and parts were very narrow and it had many steep dropoffs with no guardrails.
While driving along it, we happened on a man who'd just suffered a broken axle on his truck which was pulling a boat trailer. He was forced to drive into the side of the cliff to avoid collision with an idiot driving a large RV coming the other way. The RVer kept going, probably oblivious to what he'd just done.
Being way out in the sticks like that, we helped him out. N7JY called for assistance using the autopatch on the ARA's Mt Ord repeater. He got the information through to the 911 dispatcher so that this poor guy could get towed out of there.
Apache Trail Links:
1
2
(Word for word, same pictures too! Who's copied whom?)
Return to the
AD7DB Main Page
Return to the
Intermountain roadtrip pages
(depending on how you got here)
Copyright © 1997-2000 David G. Bartholomew, AD7DB. |
The contents of these pages do not necessarily reflect the opinions of my Internet provider, my page host (QSL.net), my employer, nor anyone else on the planet. Or anywhere else. And if I left anyone out, them too. |
|