My hands gripped the steering wheel. My right foot rode the brake. I was easing a four-wheel-drive rental down a steep, narrow, curving dirt road in the Arizona wilderness, and I was beginning to wonder what I’d gotten myself into.
On the passenger side, a towering, craggy stone wall threatened to dent the car and make me regret that I had declined the rental company’s insurance coverage. Still, I stayed as close to that wall as I dared. On the driver’s side was a fate worse than a scrape: an abrupt plunge into a canyon so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom.
This particular white-knuckle stretch of graded gravel, which drops 1,500 feet in 3 miles, is part of the Apache Trail. I drove that 120-mile ring road east of Phoenix one January day with my uncle and sister. While the route twists, rises and falls, much of it is now paved and less nerve-racking.
The road follows an old footpath mapped by Indians and encircles the Superstition Mountains, known for spires of red-brown rock. It passes “ghost towns” repopulated for tourists, Saguaro-studded landscapes and 700-year-old cliff dwellings. It also leads to the 1911 Roosevelt Dam, a structural wonder that gave modern Arizona its foothold by providing water and electricity for much of the central part of the state.
I was only a quarter of the way around it when I hit that sharp descent, but I already knew the road would deliver the Arizona I’d come to experience, all in a day’s drive: thrilling, beautiful, historic and wild.
We headed from my uncle’s house in Sun City West in the morning and turned onto the Apache Trail just when one of the first tourist stops along the way, the Goldfield Ghost Town, opened for business.
Goldfield is the kind of place that serves “vittles” (at Mammoth Steakhouse), lets you dress up for an antique-looking photograph (at Time After Time), sells sterling silver jewelry (at the Blue Nugget) and announces itself with a weathered wooden sign that reads “Arzona Territory 1893.” We approached with a shrug, wondering if the tourist kitsch would ruin the experience. Turns out, the opposite was true.
The buildings in Goldfield might be replicas — the actual ghost town had little more than foundations and a few shacks before it was rebuilt in the 1980s — but they look authentically ramshackle. It is a pleasant place to wander and pop into shops selling pottery, candy and T-shirts.
Tourist gold, views
My uncle and sister soaked up the sun along the town’s dusty lanes. I headed underground for a tour of the replica gold mine and a lesson in old Arizona, when dreamers began populating the desert and chasing riches.
A handful of other early birds and I followed our guide down a set of stairs, then into an elevator that shimmied and shook. If it was a fake ride downward, I was convinced. When we stepped out the other side of the elevator, we were in a dimly lit underground tunnel akin to those where miners engaged in extracting gold from solid rock.
“You were down here breathing silica dust. If you got silicosis, you might have six months to live. But that was OK; you were getting paid $3 a day,” said our guide, Cousin Jack, a bearded and good-natured man who stayed in character as an 1890s miner.
The mine produced 50,000 ounces of gold. Jackhammers were introduced in late 1800s. Miners had no above-ground bathroom breaks, though they could sit on a toilet with wheels, so the early porta-potty could roll out of the mines. The most memorable moment came when Cousin Jack turned off the light to demonstrate why miners wore headlamps powered by candles: There was utter blackness.
Above ground, I found my family, and we headed up the road a mile to Lost Dutchman State Park, where we stopped to take in the stunning views of the Superstition Mountains from a native plant path. Park trails lead into the Superstition Wilderness Area, but they would have to wait for another trip. Hunger inspired us onward.
When we pulled into Tortilla Flat, an old stagecoach stop on the Apache Trail, people milled about on the wooden walkway outside the Superstition Saloon, so I braced for a long wait. No need. I dropped my uncle and sister at the door, and they were already seated by the time I parked the car, passed a fake Wild West shootout spectacle and found my way to the table.
The place is known for “killer” chili, but I opted for enchiladas. They were not excellent or killer, but they were not as bad as you might expect of a place that is perfectly positioned for a noon stop along the Apache Trail with no competition in sight.
Around the bend
As the car splashed over a trickle of a creek just beyond Tortilla Flat, the tourist traps seemed to wash away. The pavement ended, and the dusty road slowly curved and climbed.
For 40 twisting miles, little lined the road but desertscapes, and the car’s windows framed views of Arizona’s stark beauty. Buttes jutted into pure blue skies. Cliffs striped with yellow, red and brown rock rose above the hillsides. Saguaro cactus, some 200 years old, dotted the scene, lording over an arid world.
Then, just as I was feeling stiff from too much driving, we came upon an overlook for Roosevelt Dam, the structure that has done so much to make the dry land hospitable.
When the dam was built in the early 1900s, granite forged from the mountainside became building blocks. Although a 1989 upgrade covered that work with concrete, the 360-foot structure is still impressive in its enormity. At the overlook, we were as high as the top of the dam itself.
Back at the car, I took out the map I had printed off the Internet. It was 3 p.m., so I broke the news to my passengers gently: “Looks like we’re halfway done.” There was nothing to do but carry on.
But soon after turning out of the parking lot, we hit pavement. Another mile or so, and we were on a highway, where we happily zipped along.
We arrived at Tonto National Monument, our last stop of the day, with little time to spare before it closed at 5 p.m. My uncle stayed at the museum, and my sister and I hiked up a cactus- and mesquite-lined walkway to the remains of a small cliff dwelling.
A cave’s rounded opening framed the straight stone walls as though it were a shadowbox. The room had been built 700 years ago by farmers known as the Salado. It was striking to peer into their home, see their fingerprints left in the adobe and a ceiling still blackened from their fires. Archaeologists know little about the group, except that they lived there year-round, farmed irrigated fields and traded with people from far away. Seashells and macaw feathers were among their possessions. They had adapted to the harsh environment, even without the benefits of Roosevelt Dam.
As we headed to the car, dusk was setting in. Our long ride was over. I was glad it ended at a place that celebrates the oldest of old.
