A Scenic Drive to Phoenix

The quickest way from Tucson to Phoenix, where we were headed, is on the I10 interstate. Thankfully we were given a recommendation on the Expedition Portal Forum to follow a more scenic route north, avoiding a boring trudge across the state. We left Tucson on the 77, headed towards globe. We stopped on the way to visit the Biosphere 2 scientific research centre, and at Globe, we joined the 188 and drove into the Tonto National Forest. I had always assumed that the south of Arizona was a landscape of flat, rocky desert, interspersed with giant Saguaro cacti, but it was clear on joining the 188 that the rugged mountainous terrain that I’d not expected to find until nearer the border with Utah, was to be found much further south.

Unlike many national forests, Tonto does not offer a camping free for all. The official name for boondocking on public land seems to be ‘dispersed camping’, and it was clear from the many signs we saw that it was banned in much of the forest. Far from finding a multitude of little used logging and forestry roads leading into a wilderness, Tonto National Forest is based more around organised campsites, and many of the roads leading off of the highway lead to expensive resorts with marinas and hotels. We stopped for the night at Theodore Roosevelt Lake, driving down the only road we could find without a hotel or resort on it. At the end of the road was a campsite, with a notice that camping permits could be bought several miles back on the main road. With no honesty box at the gate, we chanced our luck at the deserted campsite, and spent a (free) night camping by the lake.

The next day, following the recommended route posted on Expedition Portal, we joined the 88, a gravel road that heads west past Apache Lake and Canyon Lake towards Phoenix. The road starts well, passing a beautiful dam, and continues to impress until the tarmac starts again 30 miles later at the town of Tortilla Flat. The road passes through some astonishingly beautiful terrain, and ranks as one of the most beautiful roads that we have driven down on this trip. The gravel road is well graded, but it had some pretty bad corrugations when we drove down, and there where sections where the dashboard was shaking several inches back and forth even at a road speed of only 15mph. The narrow switchbacks, overhanging rocks, and steep grades around Fish Creek would make it slow going in anything much bigger than Jim.

We stopped for a swim at Apache Lake, but our plan to spend the night at Canyon Lake was thwarted by the continuous development around the lake, and the hordes of visitors from Phoenix clogging up the roads. We were soon approaching the sprawling metropolis of Phoenix, and so we stopped at a Home Depot to steal their Wi-Fi and find an appropriate place to park. Our plan to escape the heat by driving north had so far failed completely, and it was clear on arriving in Phoenix that we had to find somewhere with a 240v power supply so that we could run our air conditioner. Throughout Mexico, we had survived the heat by opening all of the windows, flaps, hatches and doors in Jim, but at 45°C, the heat in Phoenix was too much, and we would have been unable to go out for the day and leave Boris in the truck, without returning to an unpleasant situation. Phoenix is an RV friendly city, and we easily found a large number of RV parks with 50a supplies. We were in Phoenix to visit some of my family, and so we chose a site near where they live in Scottsdale.

I find it difficult to get enthused by modern, expansive, American cities such as Phoenix, and so we didn’t spend long there. Scottsdale is a pleasant place but like many American cities, it is dominated by huge roads, shopping malls and suburban residential sprawls. It was lovely to have a chance to visit my family, and old town Scottsdale is undoubtedly a charming place, but the heat and urbanity meant that we were soon back on the road heading north.