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| Superstition Mountains, Arizona |
**UPDATE - 2019** The Apache Trail is closed between Tortilla Flats and Roosevelt Dam due to wash out after the Woodbury fire. It is unknown when or if the trail will open again.
So Sunday morning rolled around. Randy and I were
tired. We wanted to sleep in. Haha - anyone with kids knows that
means we get to sleep until 6:30 instead of 6:00. The girls, Bailey (6)
and Raquel (10), wanted to go riding on the quads.
SO - we compromised. We went on a
"road trip" on the Apache Trail, and promised the girls we'd go
riding in two weeks!
So at roughly 10:30 in the morning, we set out for the Apache Trail. We
stopped at QT for slushies, and we were on our way!
First stop, the Goldfield ghosttown. One of the most commercialized
ghosttowns I've ever been to. We watched a gun fight, visited a bordello,
went to the Mercantile and loaded up on old fashioned candy. Randy and I
were itching to head up the Trail, so we didn't stay long - just long enough
for the girls to look at some old mining equipment, Bailey to complain about
the noise of the gun fight, and both girls to get some old fashioned candy
sticks.
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| Canyon Lake |
And again, we were off.
The Superstitions were absolutely stunning. The recent rainstorms had
made the mountain side explode with beautiful green leaves and brush! As
we wound through the beginning of the Apache Trail, we began to get a few
little glimpses of Canyon Lake. It was a beautiful day, the lake looked
full and fairly clear. The girls were exclaiming "oooohhhhh -
look! Can we go in???".
We stopped at the East end of Canyon Lake and watched the ducks swim around for awhile, then we were on our way again, with hopes of lunch at Tortilla Flat. That hope was dashed as we drove up and saw 50+ cars parked down the road in front of the bar/restaurant. We all agreed that a Tortilla Flat burger would have to wait until next time. We drove on!
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| Fish Creek Vista |
Next
stop, Fish Creek Vista. It was very windy, but sunny. The
girls jumped out of the truck and ran down to the gazebo. We stopped and
read a bit about Fish Creek and how difficult it was to build the road due to
the grade. It was an amazing learning experience, and worth the
stop. We walked down to where the concrete road ended and looked
down into the canyon. We could see the road at the bottom, and we knew it
was going to be a steep drive down!
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| Fish Creek Bridge |
The
road was as steep as predicted, and the old railings up on the side of the road
do not leave one feeling as though they would "save" you if your car
hit the side. There were little rivers of water dripping down the canyon
walls, and small areas that got a little rough and a few slightly washed out
areas, although all passable in a passenger car. We stopped down at the
Fish Creek bridge, which is beautiful - the Fish Creek is so clear that the
deep pools under the bridge look almost shallow. We looked up at the
cave where people like to party, and walked around a bit while down in the
canyon, but by now, it was getting late, and we still had quite a ways to go.
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| Apache Lake |
We drove on, and hit Apache
Lake, which was blue as the sky and practically deserted. It made you wonder
who would drive these huge boats and pontoons up here down a dirt road at least
15 miles long from either direction - but after spending a few minutes down by
the water, one realizes what a peaceful place this would be to spend a weekend
- or a week!
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| Roosevelt Dam |
As
we drove along Apache Lake and the inlet into Apache, we started to keep our
eyes out for Roosevelt Dam. I knew it wouldn't look like it used to the
first several times I saw Roosevelt Dam, as it had been recently covered by
concrete, and in fact was made substantially bigger due to safety
concerns. As the dam loomed ahead of us, I realized that it looked
nothing like the old masonry dam I was used to seeing. However, the sheer
size of it was stunning to the girls! Again, we stopped at the vista (Inspiration Point) and
walked around and read about the old dam and the recent renovations. We
enjoyed seeing all the old buildings and seeing the new 88 Bridge in the back
ground. The girls were excited about the dam, were even more excited to
drive over the bridge (and back), but now wanted to go see Copper Hill, because
I told them we could get out and hike around it...
As we drove into Globe, we quickly found the Copper Hill road, and started down
the dirt road looking for the old Copper Hill Mill that I remember from 20
years ago. The sun was going down, and it was cold, but we were
determined to find the Mill.
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| Copper Hill Mill Site |
We
passed quite a few ruins from the copper boom days, and even stopped to look at
some - but then we saw the mill, which looks like an abandoned resort of some
kind. The girls wanted to get out and go look around. After
reminding the girls about being careful, we picked our way around the Mill a
little bit. Randy hiked up higher to look at the ruins from the top, and
to look at what appeared to be a long chute running through several layers of
the mill down to the bottom. The girls and I opted to go back to the
truck at this point. We were disappointed by all the graffiti and broken
beer bottles everywhere. We walked the "road" back, which was
fenced off and had a no-trespassing sign on it (which, in all fairness, we
didn't see until afterwards). Unfortunately, that fence had been run down
and you couldn't see it from the road. But we could all understand why
whomever the current owners were didn't want folks up there - the Mill had been
badly destroyed by vandals, and looked so bad compared to when I had last been
up there some 15 or so years before.
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| Bailey and Quel excited about food! |
On the road back to Phoenix, we
stopped in Superior for dinner at Edwardo's Pizzeria. It wasn't great,
but it wasn't bad either - we got there in time for the SuperBowl half-time
show, and just before the entire town decided to show up for dinner!
The rest of the ride home was peaceful.
Please don't
destroy our history in Arizona. There is no reason to spray paint your
name, or whatever, onto old buildings. What purpose does it serve?
Why can't you just pick up your bottles? Glass doesn't decompose...it's
only going to hurt other visitors, or even worse, some unlucky animal who is
curious. It is for these reasons that we are going to lose our
rights to visit these beautiful, haunting, history-filled places.
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| Copper Hill Mill vandalism |
Please take only pictures, and leave only
footprints.
