The Apache Trail

 

This was one of the first views of Roosevelt Lake enroute to The Apache Trail.

Tonto National Monument was our first stop and now overlooks Roosevelt Lake both of which precede the beginning of the trail.  The Tonto cliff dwellings are two of the hundreds of once-thriving communities in the Tonto Basin.  Conditions were perfect for agriculture with the Rio Salado (Salt River) flowing through the basin.  Irrigation farming was practiced.  Outlines of these canals were visible until the basin was flooded by Theodore Roosevelt Lake.

There are upper and lower cliff dwellings open to the public.  The upper can only be viewed as part of a ranger-led tour which takes from 4-5 hours.  We didn't have that kind of time available so settled for climbing the 1/2 mile to the lower dwellings.

The ceiling in this area is blackened from the fires for cooking and heat.

Here there was a second story.  The roof area was most likely used for daytime activities - children playing, grinding corn and socializing.

This wall fascinates me.  The fingerprints in the mud have lasted many hundreds of years.

The view for the Salado people who resided here would have been a verdant basin.

Remains of the communities in the basin itself  have almost perfect 3-mile spacing, likely irrigation districts.

For the construction of Roosevelt Dam in 1903, men, equipment and materials had to be transported to the site through rugged mountain territory. A 44-mile road climbing nearly 2,000 feet up the Mogollon Rim in the shortest possible distance was built for this purpose.  

The Sunset Limited first stopped in Phoenix in 1923 on its run from New Orleans to Los Angeles and opened the "Valley of the Sun" to tourism. While the Apache Trail had been opened for tourism and named by 1920, it was the railroad that marketed the trail as a romantic and adventurous detour with views of the Sonoran desert, the Roosevelt Dam and Indian cliff dwellings.

The Southern Pacific offered an extended 120-mile motor coach excursion over the Apache Trail and built a hotel near the dam for these "detourists".  A coast to coast trip ran $360 (about $4,000) today.  The Indian detour was at a cost of an additional $20 with another $4 to view the ancient cliff dwellings.

More recently the road across the dam was removed making it necessary to build a bridge. It is considered to be one of the twelve most significant bridges in the U.S. being the longest, single-span, steel, two-lane bridge.

After passing the dam, we are officially on The Apache Trail.

The zig-zagging switchbacks begin; 1.7 miles of them.  Wind in the East Valley this day stirred up dust.  Late in the afternoon the dust has crossed the Superstition Mountains and settles into this basin.

Some of the switchbacks were quite wide but in other areas are so narrow that cars can't pass one another.

Beautiful views around every turn....

Near the end of the trail is Tortilla Flat, Arizona, a funky "town" consisting of not much more than a mercantile and restaurant. 

The original buildings burned in the late 1980s.  The walls were lined with $1 bills and supposedly were worth more than the buildings.

The walls are again papered with $1 bills; even the window sills are covered!

Note each bar stool is a different saddle and there is money everywhere you look.

But our real reason for stopping was the lure of Prickly Pear ice cream.

Behind Vic are foreign currencies.

A special treat to end this special day!