Payson, Arizona

Today I drove through some of the most spectacular desert scenery between Tucson, AZ to Payson, AZ. I decided as usual to forgo the most direct and fastest route and picked a direct line through the heart of Tonto National Forest and the Superstition Mountains. The most direct route is the Apache Trail, or Arizona route 88, a narrow, steep, twisty road which starts off paved and later becomes gravel. The paved section was a hoot and I enjoyed the performance handling my Land Rover had to offer. The gravel part was a 22 mile misery of washboard and badly corrugated road surfaces. The scenery was spectacular though.

The trail runs along the side of three reservoirs. The first and smallest is Canyon Lake held back by the Mormon Flat Dam. Here's a shot, unfortunately with power lines.

The second is Apache Lake, which unfortunately I didn't take a picture of. Here's a shot of the road just beyond Canyon Lake. One of the few places they provide a railing to prevent you going off the shear cliff to the left.

Further up, mercifully at the end of the gravel section, you reach the spectacular Roosevelt Dam. Originally built from stone around the 1910's the dam was at the time it was completed the largest stone dam in the world. The dam could not handle the largest conceivable flood that could occur in its watershed so in the 1990's the dam was enlarged using concreted to increase the capacity of the reservoir. Here's a shot of the downstream side of the dam.

Here's the upstream side with the stone original dam visible above the waterline.

To get to Payson you must cross the Salt River. In the 1990's when they were improving the dam they built the largest single span, steel arch bridge in North America. Very pretty bridge.

Payson is a small'ish town lying at the geographic center of Arizona and just south of the Mogollon Rim, the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. Despite its mundane appearance the town is a tourist destination due to its location within Tonto National Forest and its proximity to the rim. I elected to stay in the Houston Mesa camground run by the national forest.

Today I was looking at the Tapeats Sandstone where it is exposed at the East Verde River just North of town. Here's a great shot showing the basal unconformity, climbers for scale. The uconformity between the Tapeats Sandstone and the crystalline basement in just above the tops of the trees at the base of the cliff.

 

I disgorged the contents of the Land Rover onto my site to reorganize. I'm at 24 samples now. Probably close to 500 lbs of rock. They're in the plastic bags. It will soon be difficult to get it all in and organised.

 

I'm off toward California tomorrow. My next sample location is in the center of the Mohave Desert and I'm a bit worried. This will be the hottest and potentially the most miserable sample location. It's probably too long a drive for one day so I will likely camp just short of California tomorrow and nip in early Monday morning.