Scenic Drives

Belgium has the Battle of the Bulge, one of the most significant conflicts in Europe during World War II. You’ve probably heard of it. Arizona has the Battle of the Bulls, which might have been the least significant conflict of the Mexican-American War. If you somehow haven’t heard of that one, it’s probably because you haven’t been down Charleston Road, which connects the communities of Tombstone and Sierra Vista. That unusual footnote in Arizona lore is just part of the history along this easy desert meander.

In the late 1800s, the Porter family ran sheep and cattle near what now is the thriving White Mountains community of Pinetop-Lakeside. Along with several other families, the Porters played a key role in settling the area, the late Jo Baeza wrote for the White Mountain Independent in 2005. Porter Mountain, just northeast of Pinetop-Lakeside, honors that history — and is a highlight of this easy drive, which starts and ends in town.

There might not be a silver lining to wildfire, but there’s a white (and black) one: aspens, which colonize burned areas in many of Arizona’s forests. You’ll see ample evidence of that along Forest Road 276, which meanders through areas scorched by the 2011 Wallow Fire en route to the East Fork of the Black River. As you’ll find on this trek, that blaze and its aftermath have brought a new form of beauty to the White Mountains of Eastern Arizona.

“There’s a dedication planned in Pinedale, in southwestern Navajo County, where the town’s menfolk got together and built a covered wooden bridge across Pinedale Wash,” the Associated Press reported in July 1976. “A. Louis Petersen, one of the builders, says [it] is the only covered bridge in the state.”

There’s plenty to see on the Navajo Nation, and that generally means doing plenty of driving. That’s to be expected, given that the tribe’s land covers 27,000 square miles, including much of Arizona’s northeast corner. Thankfully, the in-between stretches are worth seeing, too — including the Tse’nikani (Flat Mesa Rock) Scenic Road, a section of U.S. Route 191 that forms part of a route from Monument Valley to Canyon de Chelly.

The human history of Red Rock Country stretches back much further than the late 1800s, when a handful of hardy settlers founded the community that later became Sedona. Deep in the sandstone canyons and alcoves are archaeological sites created by the area’s early inhabitants, some of whom were there at least 13,000 years ago. The two sites along Forest Road 525 aren’t quite that old, but they’re among Red Rock Country’s largest — and the view along the road is worth seeing, too.

We hear it a lot: “Why do so many of the scenic drives in Arizona Highways require a high-clearance vehicle?” It isn’t by design. But there are only so many paved scenic roads in Arizona, and on dirt roads, the quality of the roadway tends to be inversely correlated to the quality of the view out the window.

War and peace. They’re more than the title of the Leo Tolstoy novel everyone falsely claims to have read. They’re also the two basic states of human existence. This 37.5-mile drive, southwest of Tucson, is bookended by symbols of both of them — and, unlike Tolstoy’s 1,200-page tome, it’s easy to get through.

For a reservoir that once was among the world’s largest, Theodore Roosevelt Lake doesn’t get a ton of attention — possibly because it’s been surpassed by, among other human-made bodies of water, Lake Mead and Lake Powell. But while Arizona shares those reservoirs with Nevada and Utah, respectively, Roosevelt remains the largest body of water located entirely in Arizona. A-Cross Road, which runs along the north side of the lake, offers a little-seen perspective of it, along with plenty of Sonoran Desert scenery.

Northwestern Arizona isn’t widely known for fall color, but this part of the state has its share of high country — including the Hualapai Mountains, southeast of Kingman. And while many of the area’s ranges are remote and hard to access, the Hualapais are only a short drive from town on paved, scenic Hualapai Mountain Road. That road is this drive’s centerpiece, but a later stretch of dirt road offers even more scenery, along with some area history.