BACK ROAD ADVENTURE

Two Secret Lakes Between WILLIAMS and ASH FORK Hide Just a Stone's Throw Apart

TWO TINY LAKES, GLEAMING LIKE polished turquoise jewels in a sea of green juniper trees, lie hidden in a deep canyon between the northern Arizona towns of Williams and Ash Fork.

Sunfish, rainbow trout, largemouth bass and catfish, once stocked, have become self-sustaining and abundant. Elk, mule deer, antelopes, wild turkeys and black bears frequent the shorelines of the isolated lakes, which hold the only reliable source of water for a huge section of the Kaibab National Forest.

Not many people know of the twin lakes, even though they are just a mile or two north of heavily traveled Interstate 40. Those who do know tend to be close-mouthed about them, especially the local anglers who prize the pristine wilderness fishing.

Built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, the lakes were designed as reservoirs for the railroad's thirsty steam engines. Each lake was named for its dam.

Steel Dam, also known as the F.H. Bainbridge Steel Dam after its designer, is 103 years old. Stone Dam, upstream of Steel Dam, is 99 years old. Both dams remain in excellent shape and have never leaked.

All but forgotten today, the reservoirs were once known throughout the Santa Fe's transcontinental line not only for their priceless supply of water but for the unique pair of dams that backed them up.

One dam was made of prefabricated plates of steel — the first all-steel dam in the world. The other was made of huge blocks of pink sandstone cut from quarries between Winslow and Holbrook, more than 100 miles to the east. The lakes, only a half-mile apart, can easily be visited in a single day.

Their hidden locations help the lakes escape notice. Even Forest Service employees find it difficult to give directions to them. There are no signs to direct visitors, and the thick forest of juniper trees masks the lakes until a person ends up almost on top of them.

Hard-to-find dirt roads lead to each lake. But it takes a high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicle to withstand the pounding ride over rock-strewn ruts. It also helps if you don't mind a few scratches on the paint job from the many tree branches that line the roads.

The lakes are sheltered by the steep walls of Johnson Canyon, a beautiful but rugged chasm that once served as a thoroughfare for railroad traffic to and from the West Coast.

The early steam engines of the Santa Fe needed frequent stops to load up on coal and fill their boilers, but there were few water sources in the area. Construction engineers took note of the runoff of snowmelt that tumbled down Johnson Canyon each spring from the higher mountains. A dam, it was decided, would create a year-round supply of water that could be pumped out of the canyon to a water tank beside the railroad tracks.

The technology of building concrete dams was not far advanced a century ago, so dam-builders relied on stone. But because suitable stone wasn't available in the Williams-Ash Fork area, the Santa Fe, an enterprising and risk-taking company in those days, turned an appreciable ear to a new dam-building material — steel. It was a gamble, especially in preventing rust from eating away the metal. But the railroad decided the engineering seemed sound, and prefabricated steel panels could be manufactured in Milwaukee and shipped to the site on the company's own freight cars.

Steel Dam proves worth a visit just to see a truly unusual design. The dam's 24 curved steel plates with alternate rigid and loose riveted panels provide for expansion in hot weather and contraction in cold. From the top, the curved steel plates give the dam a scalloped appearance.

Most modern dams curve inward to equalize the water pressure of the reservoirs. Steel Dam runs 300 feet straight across, and the whole dam leans outward, or downstream, at a 45-degree angle. When the 36 million-gallon reservoir with no spillway exceeds its capacity, the surplus water simply washes over the face of the dam.

The Arizona Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers was instrumental in listing Steel Dam as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark last year.

Four years after Steel Dam was built, the railroad decided it needed a bigger-capacity reservoir. This time the railroad decided to construct a dam of stone, a major undertaking considering the difficulty of transporting hundreds of blocks of stone, each weighing a ton or more, halfway across the state. The railroad built a spur track from the main railroad line down into Johnson Canyon, where the blocks for Stone Dam were off-loaded and cut to shape by skilled stonecutters. A huge pile of reddish sandstone chips lines the northern side of the lake, evidence of this painstaking work. After the final shaping, railroad cranes, powered by steam, lifted the blocks into place.

Stone Dam Lake offers anglers the best fishing because lying upstream from Steel Dam, it gets first crack at nutrients washed down Johnson Canyon during spring runoffs. Also, in occasional drought years, Steel Dam sometimes goes dry and a new stock of fish is needed after it is refilled.

Despite the bad road, some Ash Fork residents guide their four-wheel-drive pickups through the maze of junipers all the way down to the shore of Stone Dam Lake to fish.

Getting to Steel Dam Lake requires travelers to take another, longer road paved with huge oil-pan-snagging rocks. Junipers closely hugging the final half-mile of the road can rip off vehicles' side mirrors. The road ends at the dam, and all fishing and camping gear must be hand-carried to the water's edge.

In 1954, the Santa Fe switched from steam engines to diesel engines that do not need water. Then, in 1960, deciding it no longer needed the Johnson Canyon route and its steep grades, the railroad moved its main lines to a flatter location 10 miles to the north. The old railbed was abandoned and its tracks pulled up.

With no more train traffic, Johnson Canyon and its two reservoirs lapsed into obscurity — a good thing, you'll agree, if you take the trouble to visit these little lakes hidden away in one of Arizona's historic canyons. AH