Arizona has its share of deceptively named roads. The Senator Highway — which in places barely qualifies as a road, let alone a highway — is one of them. Another is the Swift Trail, which climbs into Eastern Arizona’s Pinaleño Mountains. And while this steep, winding road requires patience and careful driving, the panoramic views, varied flora and cool breezes at the top make it an essential drive, especially as an escape from the summer heat.
Most visitors to Mingus Mountain, one of Central Arizona’s best-known landmarks, travel a paved, winding road from State Route 89A to the top of the mountain. But if you’ve got a four-wheel-drive vehicle and you’re looking for a challenge, consider taking the alternative route: a series of county and forest roads leading north from State Route 169. What this true back-road adventure lacks in easy driving, it makes up for in scenery and solitude.
For most people driving to the South Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, Red Butte is a signal they’ve almost arrived. But the Kaibab National Forest landmark once served the same purpose for air travelers. This 14.2-mile loop, an ideal side trip during a South Rim visit, offers a peek at a mostly forgotten chapter of the Canyon’s history and a closer look at the butte itself.
Sometimes, a scenic detour isn’t one you make by choice. That was the case in 2013, when a “geological event” caused a section of U.S. Route 89 south of Page to buckle. Until the road was repaired two years later, motorists had to use more circuitous routes to travel to and from Page, Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam. One of those was State Route 98 — and, as you’ll see on this drive, the scenery along this 66.3-mile road proves that not everything about a detour is a hardship.
On most mountain roads, the higher you go, the rougher the road gets. Carr Canyon Road, the only driving route to the upper reaches of Southern Arizona’s Huachuca Mountains, is no exception: What begins as a paved meander later becomes a steep, rutted and patience-testing climb. Luckily, the panoramic views and fascinating geology you’ll see along the way make it more than worth the effort.
Photographers tell us that Doll Baby Ranch Road, which winds into the mountains west of Payson, is best experienced at day’s end, when the light of sunset brings a beautiful glow to the hills. But this 11-mile drive is nice for other reasons, too: It’s mostly paved and little traveled, and you’ll get mountain views and even a little history along the way.
It sounds like something out of the Wild West: a remote desert outpost, without electricity or running water, at the end of a rocky dirt road. The Hovatter family lived that reality — not in the 1800s, but for more than two decades in the mid-20th century. Today, road conditions make the site of the family’s homestead inaccessible to most passenger cars, but a 21.7-mile drive on the rest of Hovatter Road is rich in scenery, history and Sonoran Desert flora.
When you start this drive amid a thick forest of ponderosa pines, you’ll find it hard to believe that you’ll soon be peering into one of Arizona’s largest canyons. But Sycamore Canyon, despite its size, has a way of surprising you. Although a wildfire raged in the canyon this summer, the view from Sycamore Point is as spectacular as ever — and there’s plenty to enjoy along the way.
Fire does what it does. On just about any scenic drive in the White Mountains of Eastern Arizona, you’ll be reminded of that. But the forest does what it does, too. On this easy loop drive just south of Big Lake, you’ll see ample evidence of the Wallow Fire, which was sparked by an improperly extinguished campfire and scorched more than a half-million acres of this landscape in the summer of 2011. But you’ll also see what it looks like when the forest undergoes a vibrant rebirth — and in summer, that rebirth is lovely to see.
