Back Road Adventure

Take Old Route 66, the Scenic Route, to Topock Gorge

The rain poured, and clouds billowed like smoke in the barren crags southwest of Kingman. I left the heart of the northwestern Arizona town intent on getting to a spot called Topock, a place where cattails stood thick on the low banks of the Colorado River. I could have taken an interstate highway to make this trip, but that would not be nearly as scenic as taking old Route 66, which was once the nation's major crosscountry highway. The portion of Route 66 between Kingman and the Colorado River at Topock would wind over Sitgreaves Pass and down through the quaint remnant of a gold mining town called Oatman.If you describe this route to old-timers in Kingman, one of the first things you'll hear is that in the 1930s Clark Gable and Carol Lombard were married in Kingman and spent their wedding night in Oatman, and they had to have driven the same road I was taking. I've often wondered why people in small towns tell you things like that. Is it intriguing to know that celebrities would travel to such obscure and remote locations to get married? I left the Kingman Area Chamber of Commerce and drove south on old 66, which immediately passed between the walls of a granite boulder that had been blasted apart to make the road. What I wanted to know was what Clark and Carole were driving when they went through; and if the day had been as gray and dank as this one, or was it the bright sunny day all newlyweds expect? Certainly they weren't so daft as to drive this twisting road in the dark! What did they talk about along the way? Did she say, "Oh, Clark honey, this place looks like the end of the Earth"? And did he say, "I want you all to myself, my dear"? "Hey, keep your eyes on the road," I said to myself as I veered across the centerline. Later I found that a few skeptics, including some biographers of Clark, contend the couple did not spend their wedding night in Oatman, but returned directly to Carole's home after their 1939 ceremony in Kingman. Newspaper accounts at the time, though not conclusive about where the couple spent the night, strongly indicate they stayed in the area for at least one night. Clark was on a break from shooting Gone With the Wind and had no reason to hurry back to California. My journey was filled with even more contradictions: a cloudy, wet day in an area that is normally dry and bathed in sunlight, a twisty route through arid mountains where wild burros and Gila monsters and long-eared jackrabbits were the dominant life-forms. A road that would take me to a place where a real river flowed, nourishing a large population of fish and seabirds at the edge of the Mohave Desert. At the start of the trip, it seemed logical to conclude that water was no closer than the nearest planet in the solar system, and yet by the time I reached Topock, I had gone from the dimutive desert scrub to a place where tamarisk trees rose tall and dense.Begin this excursion at the Kingman Area Chamber of Commerce and drive west and south on Route 66. After five miles the road makes a sharp right, and soon you'll see the sign that says Historic 66/ Oatman Road. Oatman is a slow 22 miles away. About 15 miles west on the Oatman Road, watch for the Thimble

Mountain Back Country By-way Kiosk on the right. The remainder of this route through the Black Mountains is a National Back Country Byway, administered by the Bureau of Land Management.

Look around at the unusual desert terrain. On the day I passed through, all of the colors were muted by the drizzle and heavy cloud cover, and the jumble of rounded hills and jagged ridgelines reminded me of the splotched leathery hide of a sleeping rhinoceros. On a clearer day, you might see big-horn sheep on the crags or a wild burro.

The road climbs precipitous-ly from the information kiosk pullout there are no guard rails and in less than a mile you'll pass the decaying remnants of Ed's Camp. Once this was a popular rest stop for cross-country travelers, some of whom would go into the surrounding fields to dig for fire agates.

The road continues its serpentine ascent another 2.7 miles to Sitgreaves Pass. Lo-cated at an altitude of 3,610 feet, the pass was named for Lt. Lorenzo Sitgreaves, a 19th-century military explorer who helped map a route across northern Arizona.

Sitgreaves never went through the pass that bears his name. In the 1950s, there was a combi-nation gas station and grocery store at the pass. Today there is nothing, just an unpaved pull-out where you can rest and look into the distance at three states: Arizona, California, and Nevada.

Six miles down the west side of the pass, you'll come to Oatman originally called Viviana once bustling gold mining town founded around 1906. In 1909 the name was changed to Oatman, probably in memory of Olive Oatman, a girl kid-napped by Indians in 1851 and held for a while at a spot called Ollie Oatman Spring, a half mile north of town. A second, equally undocumented version claims the town was named for a half-breed Indian who became a wealthy miner and claimed to be the son of Olive Oatman and a Mohave Indian. Between 1914 and 1934, nearly $30 million in gold was extracted from the Tom Reed and United Eastern mines.

During this period, Oatman's population approached 10,000, and its business district flourished. Gold mining was halted by the War Production Board in 1942, and Oatman rapidly became a ghost town. Eventually it was revived by retirees and entrepreneurs, and today it is a collection of ramshackle buildings, tourist shops, and restaurants, a town with plank sidewalks, where wild burros wander the main street begging for food (stores will sell you carrots to give them). A little over a mile west of Oatman, the road forks. Bear left and head for Golden Shores, 16 miles away. Four miles southwest of Golden Shores, you can fish in the Colorado River or spend a leisurely afternoon bird-watching at Havasu National Wildlife Refuge. Route 66 rejoins Interstate 40 at Topock and can be used to return to Kingman (52 miles), or you can go west 12 miles to Needles, California, where the headquarters for the wildlife refuge is located. The entire drive can be done at a leisurely pace in 2.5 hours one way, but visitors will undoubtedly want to spend more time poking around Oatman than I did on a rainy day.

TIPS FOR TRAVELERS

Back road travel in remote areas 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, and 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 story may vary by vehicle.