Apache Trail (a little east of Phoenix, AZ) Part 1

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

We decided to make a day trip and drive the Apache Trail scenic drive.  It is only about 88 miles long but involves 22 miles of dirt road and took us about 8 hours to do.  The whole way along the trip we made lots of stops and took lots of pictures.  Because of the number of pictures, I am dividing this drive into 2 blog posts.

We started about 8am and headed to Canyon Lake.  It was a beautiful morning!

The sun shining through this cactus looks so pretty.  These cactus look so soft and fuzzy. BUT LET ME TELL YOU they are extremely prickly and practically jump out and attach themselves to anything that gets close.

Along the drive to Canyon Lake we saw this rock formation jutting up.  It was so beautiful against the beautiful blue sky.

More beautiful scenes along the drive to Canyon Lake.

We had to go up and down many mountains.  This was the view down one of the canyons we drove past.

Don't these mountains look rugged.  We had to take this picture into the sun, but it is not a bad picture.

Here is a pull out to view Canyon Lake.  Below is the view of the lake from this vista.  

 This is our first glimpse of Canyon Lake.  There were electric poles everywhere so many of our pictures have them in the picture.  

We passed a sign that said "One lane bridge in 1/2 mile".  Then we turned a corner and saw the bridge.  I took this picture out of the car window.  All the lakes along our drive are created from dams along the Salt River.  This bridge is crossing the river before we arrived at Canyon Lake.

 

This is a lakeside panoramic Tic took of the lake.  The mountain walls run straight into the lake.  On that side of the lake there was not any shore.  This picture is inadequate at showing the beauty.

This beautiful duck was a short distance off the dock where Tic was standing taking pictures.

This is a closeup of the mountain going directing into the lake.  You can see part of the dock Tic is standing on.  Look for the small splash across the lake.  That is a fair sized speed boat passing by.  The size of the boat shows how far away the boat actually was from the dock.

People can take tours of the lake on The Dolly. 

Here is a better picture of The Dolly.  The cruises go out at noon and again at 4pm.  We were there a little before 10am.  We decided this could be another day adventure.

This is a view of Canyon Lake as we were headed on our journey towards Tortilla Flat.  Just about this time the road changed to dirt.  It was to be dirt for the next 22 miles.

The smoke from the building in the distance is the restaurant in Tortilla Flat.

Here we are in Tortilla Flat.  This is the mercantile and post office.  The internet said the population of Tortilla Flat is 6.  It is the smallest town to have both a post office and voting place.

This is looking back towards the direction we came into town.  Beautiful countryside.

This is the saloon side in the restaurant.  Notice the 4 horse's rear-end carved stools.

The remainder of the bar stools are actual western saddles.  I noticed no one was sitting at any part of the bar.  Perhaps it was too early in the day, although it was about 11 am.

This is the eating area of the restaurant.  The walls are lined with $1 bills.  They are neatly organized whereas the $1 bills in the restaurant in Oatman, AZ were haphazardly placed.

The stalls in the ladies room were painted cute.  The body was on the door and the head was on the back wall.

This is the sink area in the restroom.  I thought it was really cute.

The sign above and below talks about the Dutchman and his lost gold mine.

Everywhere in the Superstition Mountains the "Lost Dutchman's Mine" is referred to.

This shows the small museum in Tortilla Flat.  Good thing it did not cost to go in.

Shortly after leaving Tortilla Flat we headed up into the mountains again.  We stopped at this point to get this picture of the road we are getting ready to go down.  There was lots of up and down.

This was part of the road down.  We were not impressed with the "guardrails". Down at the sharp curve in the road is a bridge.  

Here is a little closer look at the one-lane bridge.

Here we are checking out this chasm.  You can see the dirt road was well graded although there were many spots that were only one car width.

These are the mountains we drove beside getting to the bridge.

This is also looking back up the road from which we came.  The rock formations are interesting.

This is the water on the downhill side of the bridge.  Doesn't look like much.

This is the water on the uphill side.  As it comes down the hill it pooled deeply.  This was a pretty chasm.

At another high vista we learned about Fish Creek Hill.  This is a very rugged area.  The work it took to cut this road is amazing.  Some of the cuts had to go 60 - 70 ft into the mountains.  It was gorgeous!

Our next stop is Apache Lake.  I'm going to put Apache Lake and Roosevelt Lake and Dam in the next post.