BACK ROAD ADVENTURE Black Hills Back Country Byway

backroad A 21-mile Trip NEAR SAFFORD Travels BLACK Lava-covered Hills, While a Lush River Crossing Lends a Touch of GREEN

NOTHING BEATS A LONESOME DAY ON A DIRT track through empty hills. Throw in stops for rockhounding, hiking an oak woodland or dallying by a desert river, and you have a trip along the Black Hills Back Country Byway. Running for 21 miles between Safford and Clifton, the unpaved Byway intersects U.S. Route 191 at both its northern and southern ends. Though the Byway itself is in good shape, a four-wheel-drive vehicle is recommended for many of its spur roads.

I started from the southern access, 18 miles northeast of Safford, and the first stop comes about 3 miles along. Here, the road crests above the Twin C Ranch. It was founded in the Arizona, southern California and central Mexico. Fire agate comes in a variety of shapes and colors caused by mineral impurities. Many collectors consider these stones as beautiful as opals, but be prepared to do some digging. The gem field can be reached from U.S. 191 as well, and that route is much easier.

Just ahead of the overlook above the Twin C, I spotted a tangle of broken-down timbersremnants of a platform from which pumice from a 1950s cinder mine was loaded onto trucks for hauling to Safford, where it was made into cinder blocks. A half-mile past the timbers lies the cinder pit, a bank of reddish earth standing in sharp contrast to the surrounding landscape.

Formed by volcanic activity 20 million years ago, the Black Hills' tall, craggy buttes sustain unusual mixtures of grass, sand and creosote, and fields of prickly pear cacti interspersed with black volcanic rock. These old lava flows, mostly andesite, rhyolite and docite, appear in well-defined falls called talus slopes. From a distance, these look like black water running down the mountains, adding an eerie quality to the terrain that Geronimo Crossed on his raids from Mexico into Arizona, and back again. The Apache war leader once said he was never lost until he and other Chiricahua prisoners were shipped to Oklahoma. In that flat Midwest terrain, he was unable to use mountain peaks as markers.

Driving the Byway, I can understand what he was talking about. Above the cinder pit, I look back across a broad sweep of desert to tall mountains on the horizon. The Dos Cabezas Mountains-Spanish for "two heads"-jut into the sky 50 miles away. Another overlook, 3 miles beyond, offers a panorama that includes Mount Graham to the southwest, the Phelps late 1880s as a goat ranch, but the land is so dry that every few days the rancher had to herd his animals 6 miles to the Gila River to drink, then back again. The road leads past the ranch to the Black Hills Rockhound Area, popular with collectors of fire agate, a form of silica found only in desert regions of

Dodge mining operation to the northeast and the cliffs of Eagle Creek Canyon to the north. Bring binoculars.

Between Mileposts 17 and 18, the Byway crosses a portion of the Gila Box Riparian National Conservation Area, 21,000 acres of Creeks and canyons popular with rafters, hikers and photographers. You can also get there along several four-wheel-drive side roads, including one through Deadman Canyon, which earned its name when a cowboy chasing his horses there found a man's skeleton with a rope around its neck. Dark Canyon Road, right of the Byway at the 10.8-mile mark, is rough, too. But it makes a good hike. It leads into a pretty canyon bordered on the right by white oak and hackberry trees.

A half-mile farther, perched on the hillside to the left, stands a tin miner's shed riddled with bullet holes. It looks as if one more shot will bring the whole structure rattling down. But it hangs on, full of mystery in the mountain sunlight.

Prison labor built the Byway over six years beginning in 1914. The men worked with blasting powder, picks and scrapers drawn by mules, and at night they lived in wire enclosures. Three successfully escaped, but Jesus Rodriguez did not. In December 1916, he was killed trying to flee. Two prisoners, including Rodriguez, rest in graves on the west side of the Byway near its southern intersection with 191.

The remains of one of these labor campsa small bake oven and a crumbling concrete bathhouse-stand between Mileposts 16 and 17. From the same headquarters, between 1935 and 1937, Civilian Conservation Corps workers built the stone breastworks that still line hillsides in the area. These spreader dikes were designed to hold back runoff and reduce erosion.

Along the last half of the Byway, the startling sight of Phelps Dodge's open-pit copper mine at Morenci dominates the northern horizon, stretching almost 2 miles from rim to rim of the northern horizon.

While chasing Indians in 1865, a Union cavalry troop discovered the first copper traces there. In 1881, Morenci mine owner William Church convinced East Coast merchant Anson Phelps and his sons-in-law, William Dodge and Daniel James, to invest. Their decision paid off in 1884, when demand for copper surged after Thomas Edison's invention of electric light. The hills around Morenci and Clifton turned out to be among the most copper-rich in the world.

Another impressive sight stands at 17.2 miles-the Old Safford Bridge spanning the Gila River. The same prison labor completed this remarkable concrete structure in 1919 at a cost of more than $60,000. The bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

If you're truly adventurous and have four-wheel drive, try a dip in Gillard Hot Springs on the Gila River. The hottest natural spring in Arizona, it awaits at the end of a 4-mile-long road that begins on the left side of the Byway, 2 miles beyond the bridge.

If the Gila's flow runs low enough, exposing the springs, you can scoop out a hole in the sand, mixing river water with 180-degree water from the springs, and enjoy an open-air hot tub.

Underneath the bridge, weekenders launch boats and enjoy picnics. It's also fun to hike along the river, or stand on the small bluffs that line its southern bank. Listening to the music of the rushing water while watching a red-tailed hawk soar overhead makes a nice end to my day in a dry land. AH WARNING: Back road travel can be hazardous if you are not prepared for the unexpected. Whether traveling in the desert or in the high country, be aware of weather and road conditions. Make sure you and your vehicle are in top shape and you have plenty of water. Don't travel alone, and let someone at home know where you're going and when you plan to return. Odometer readings in the story may vary by vehicle. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: A brochure on the Black Hills Back Country Byway, also known as the Old Safford-Clifton Road, is available from the chambers of commerce in both Safford and Clifton, along with an audiocassette on the history and natural features of the Black Hills. Greenlee County Chamber of Commerce, Clifton, (928) 865-3313; Graham County Chamber of Commerce, Safford, (928) 428-2511; Bureau of Land Management, Safford Field Office, (928) 348-4400.