Flagstaff to Tucson

April 27th, 2016

I took HWY 3 southeast out of Flagstaff, which is a secondary paved road that follows rolling, ponderosa covered plateau for 50 miles to where it tee’s into HWY 87, and another 25 miles to the edge of the Mogollon (moogy-on) Rim.   HWY 3 has great shoulder and sparse traffic, 87 just the opposite.   From the grand view at the Mogollon Rim you descend a few thousand feet through several towns (Payson the largest) and vegetation zones 50 miles to Roosevelt Lake.    Lots of head wind but enjoyable none-the-less through really beautiful country.   The Mogollon Plateau has the world’s largest stand of ponderosa pine (just read that in the Payson newspaper, actually).

Roosevelt Lake is one of several reservoirs on the Salt River, the largest, and is a water source for Phoenix, to the west.  It’s in the Tonto Basin, a beautiful valley with saguaro cactus covered hillsides, and grim history of cattle & sheep range wars (Google Tewksburys and the Grahams).   It’s also a crowded recreation destination for Phoenix folks and a bit of a relief to get away from.

 

Lots of spring flowers and flowering shrubs, many I don’t recognize.   Below, a few photos (actually a bunch) for the botanist types.

There was a steep grade getting out of Tonto Basin that I did half of one evening and the other half the following morning after a night in a beautiful campsite over looking the valley.  Fought headwinds the rest of the way to Globe and then had a little misadventure getting to the town itself.  Globe sits at the top of a hill and as I approached town could see the highway curving off the wrong way to a junction and then backtracking up the hill to the town proper.  I couldn’t help but notice a little side road that appeared to lead straight to the town without the detour.   I’m a chronic shortcutter and resistance to this one was useless.  I pushed the bike up a rediculasly steep hill (something I actually don’t mind doing once in a while- it can be a sort of “moving rest”) passed some businesses and rounded some corners.  But then, at an unlikely place for a dentist’s office, everything ended.  When does one admit defeat and go back?  I potraged the bike and gear in three carries up a sandy cactus and yucca slope to a dirt road.   I would have still been money ahead to just turn back at that point but instead walked the bike over a rocky two track that wound up and down and eventually back to the highway.  Got me off of the bike for a while, I guess.

Had a quiet time at the Globe library and a couple of restaurant meals in the morning and afternoon.   Then another misadventure getting out of Globe.    I won’t go into details (there were no more portages) but I squandered 10 precious miles on wrong turns and roads egressing a hillside city that’s laid out like a maze.   Had another beautiful high desert camp among pinions, mesquite and cactus.   Lots of birds to see and I wish I had binos.  May have to add a small pair to the payload.   Pretty sure on a green-tailed towhee.  Heard poorwills after dark.

A chilly morning and a long uphill to over 5000 feet began the day, followed by 20 miles downgrade to Winkleman,  an outpost that might be described as a “company town” where ore from the Globe copper mine is smelted.   A smokestack hundreds of feet high overlooks the town and there’s a fair amount of heavy truck traffic back and forth over the road I’d just traveled.   And true to the observed correlation of narrow shoulder / heavy traffic, it was scary in places.  I suspect a road approaching zero traffic would have a shoulder width tending to infinity.

I got caught by darkness in a Tucson satellite community called Oracle.  It’s at the top off a 10 mile upgrade that I was expecting to be much flatter and consequently took longer.  After getting water I pretty much plopped down in a vacant lot.  Sixty five mile day.

Easy downhills and tailwinds brought me 35 miles to Tucson this morning.  Bought some mini binoculars at REI.