At Arizona Highways, we want to give you your money’s worth — which is why, for a scenic drive to become a Scenic Drive, it has to have plenty of scenery. That often means the drive needs to be a certain length. San Francisco River Road, which parallels its namesake waterway, is an exception: There’s so much beauty along it that this short trip is more than worth the journey.
Southern Arizona
In the old days, the story goes, three oak trees marked the U.S.–Mexico border at the end of a broad, shallow canyon south of Arivaca. No one knows for sure whether that’s how Tres Bellotas Canyon — Spanish for “three acorns” — got its name, but there’s no doubt about the scenery along Tres Bellotas Road, which winds through mountains and desert washes en route to its namesake landform.
With the Valley of the Sun ever expanding, it’s hard to believe a pristine Sonoran Desert drive can still be found an hour or so (traffic permitting) from downtown Phoenix. Yet the Hieroglyphic Mountains, north of the Valley, offer exactly that via Castle Hot Springs Road, where you’ll encounter surprising greenery, mountain views and a lodging destination with more than a century of history.
Copper mining has fueled Arizona’s economy since the 1800s, and the state is full of towns rooted in the ongoing search for that precious mineral. This paved drive connects two of those towns, Globe and Winkelman — and while you won’t see much mining activity from the road, you will encounter mountain vistas, a desert river and a dash of American history.
In the desert, life happens where the water is. In the mountains of Central Arizona, that reality is on full display — and not just when it comes to flora and fauna. Since the 1800s, the availability of water here has dictated where humans could settle, mine for precious minerals, and raise cattle and crops. An easy drive on Wagoner Road offers a scenic look at one important water source, the Hassayampa River — and some glimpses of history along the way.
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.
