ALONG THE WAY

adventure Circuitous Scenic Route Parallels OVERLAND ROAD HISTORIC TRAIL South of Williams

WALKING IN PIONEERS' FOOTSTEPS ALWAYS appeals to my love for history, so, when photographer Bernadette Heath told me about 23 miles of the Overland Road Historic Trail in the Kaibab National Forest, now open to foot, horseback or mountain bike traffic, I started packing. We decided to stay with friends who live in the area, then scout the route the next day. From our map, we'd discovered the trail's northern section swung close to Williams (as the eagle flies, about 55 miles due north of Prescott) and could be "sampled" by driving parallel to it on Forest Service roads and exploring at several trailheads.

My reading indicated the ruthlessly rocky 85mile original route-the first "white-man" pathfrom Prescott to Flagstaff-had probably broken more wagon wheels than any other frontier road. A Forest Service report calls it ". the worst travel conditions anywhere for 19th-century animal-drawn wagons and stagecoaches."

Some speculate that the original path may have followed a Hopi Indian trading route. In any case, Overland Trail's modern history began in 1863 when the U.S. Army laid out and built the route to connect Prescott and its short-lived gold rush with main routes across the state. Few Anglos had tackled the terrain of central Arizona territory, so rugged and hostile with Indians that even Spanish explorers had avoided it for centuries. Getting to Prescott from Flagstaff meant braving marauding Indians, lava rock and high, steep canyons. To a country in dire need of gold to finance the Civil War, though, defying the odds suddenly seemed worth the risk.

The Overland Trail slowly disappeared after 1882 with the arrival of the railroad and the discovery of less treacherous trails.

We began in Williams, an easy 30mile drive west from Flagstaff on Interstate 40. Following 4th Street as it becomes County Road 73 south out of Williams for about 7 miles, we turned left on Forest Service Road 113 (which becomes Forest Service Road 139, then Forest Service Road 13). All the trailheads along the Overland Trail - including Dead Horse Tank, where we first abandoned our car to hike the trail, just.9 mile east of County Road 73 - had interpretive signs and easily followed lineof-sight rock cairns and brass-topped guideposts. An original stretch of the pioneer road lies just across the road from the Dead Horse Tank parking lot. Elk bugled as we strolled a delightful forest path and spotted the "tank," or small watering pond, about a mile east on the far side of a large, rocky meadow. Those 19th-century