Courtesy Photo VisitArizona.com

The breathtaking view of rocky formations jutting out of the desert floor, also known as Monument Valley, sits on the Navajo Indian Reservation in northern Arizona, attracting thousands of visitors every year. The scenery invites all to wander among the sandstone pinnacles with such names as The Mittens, Three Sisters, Totem Pole and Yeibichai. This is the land moviemaker John Ford made famous decades ago – the same land that helped make actor John Wayne a star. Travelers can see this homeland of the Navajos by journeying up US Route 163, the Kayenta-Monument Valley Scenic Road near the Arizona-Utah border, near the city of Page.

Beginning in 1939, the Westerns that Ford filmed featured the glory of red mesas , and while sparsely settled by Navajo sheepherders and a few others, became a mecca for sightseers and Old West buffs. Few places offer such a distinct link to the past. People first arrived in the region nearly 12,000 years ago when, archaeologists believe, nomadic tribes followed large game, like woolly mammoths, into the area. Over time, the game became smaller, the people more sophisticated.

Around A.D. 700, significant advances in weaponry and agriculture allowed people to settle permanently. The Anasazi, or ancestral Puebloans, with their superior hunting and farming techniques, developed the first stationary community in the region. Around A.D. 1250, the Puebloans moved from the area leaving their dwellings, now ruins throughout the Navajo Nation. Navajos entered the region later, sometime around A.D. 1500, though there are conflicting theories. Fighting over the land continued almost constantly – whether between different tribes, Spaniards, Mexicans or European-Americans – the region remained awash with turmoil for several centuries. It wasn’t until after the forced “Long Walk of the Navajos” into captivity in New Mexico in the 1860s that the Navajos returned home and witnessed the recognition of their land as sovereign.

The beauty of Monument Valley did not remain secret for very long. An archaeological expedition, funded by the American Museum of Natural History and headed by Charles L. Bernheimer, moved into the valley in 1927. With the help of John Wetherill, Bernheimer sought out sites such as Rainbow Bridge, an enormous natural, rocky arch that stretches 275 feet across at a height of 270 feet. Old Mike, a Ute Indian, then led the group to another natural bridge formation on June 8, 1927. Dubbed Clara Bernheimer Natural Bridge, after Bernheimer’s wife, the obscurely located arch hidden in the remote northern pocket of Arizona appeals to those with a taste for the extreme.

Courtesy Photo ArizonScenicRoads.com

This is the perfect trip for those who just to break away and go for a nice, long drive. This road traverses 82 miles along SR 89A between mileposts 525 and 607.

The Vermilion Cliffs highways is a project involving a partnership of 40 public and private entities providing a combination of 21 interpretive sites or scenic overlooks along 277 miles of state highways in northern Arizona and southern Utah.

The Vermilion Cliffs highways traverse some of the most scenic landforms in the West.

This scenic road is the gateway to the Colorado River in Marble Canyon and to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Heading north on this road from Bitter Springs on the Navajo Nation, travelers can stop at the Navajo Bridge.

Pipe Springs National monument is a historic Mormon settlement travelers can find along the way. Living history here depicts how an early Mormon settlement looked and worked in the 1800s.

Travelers will also pass through the town of Fredonia, Arizona, a town of less than one thousand residents.

The Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monument, a series of multi-colored cliffs can be seen rising to elevations of over 11,000 feet above the sea level.

Travelers will be encompassed with changing scenery with every mile they travel down this scenic road.

Photo Courtesy Arizona Department of Transportation

Saguaros stand next to Joshua trees, cliffs and canyons loom to the east and west and granite boulders give way to an expanse of jagged volcanic rock. Between Wickenburg and Wikieup, this 54-mile byway cuts a path through the blurred boundaries the Sonoran and Mojave deserts.

The drive officially begins in Wikieup. Wikieup is known for its pie, the Snoopy-piloted Wikieup arrow, the Wikieup Trading Post, Eat at Joe’s Barbecue and the creosote-peppered hills that surround Bronco Wash.

Once travelers move past Wikieup, they’ll find the Big Sandy River. The river, unless it’s been rainy, lives up to its name—it’s big and sandy. Beyond the river, eroded cliffs loom that are speckled in spots with saguaros and scrub.

At Mile Marker 147, travelers will see rocks that are piled on top of each other. It’s the perfect sight before arriving at  the town of Nothing. Nothing was a real Arizona town, but it remains fairly desolate now. When travelers spot it, they’ll see there isn’t much beyond junk.

Joshua trees become the focal point of this drive around Mile Marker 162. They’re reminiscent of the baobab trees made famous in Saint Exupery’s Little Prince, and if your imagination is active, you might see a little blonde boy emerge from the trees with a dog and a well-protected flower in hand.

By Mile Marker 169, the forest of Joshua trees is dense and you’ll see a sign that reads: “Joshua tree Parkway of Arizona.” The route continues on to Wickenburg, a classic Old West town that celebrates the state’s cowboy heritage with the Desert Caballeros Museum and a string of Western-themed shops and restaurants.

Photo Courtesy of Apache Trail Tours

The Drive

Just east of the city of Mesa, turning off at State Route 88 (Idaho Road) from State Route 60, is the historic Apache Trail. The 42-mile long trip offers a bumpy, back-door, Salt River route from Apache Junction, on the eastern outskirts of Phoenix, to Theodore Roosevelt Lake and then on to the mining town of Globe. The paved portion of the Apache Trail leads past a ghost town, a gold mine, a desert mystery and a cliff-sided lake.

Beyond the city lights and nearby residents of the East Valley, the Sonoran Desert  on display with yuccas and saguaros can be seen as you make the journey down a roller-coaster descent to a robber’s refuge, past a lazy lake, through a river canyon, and on to the extrinsically constructed dam, which paved the way to what Phoenix is today.

Patient drivers with no fear of heights are rewarded with three awe-inspiring desert lakes and the history and mystery of thousands of years of human adaptation to a volcanic landscape of drought, shard and thorn. The road, completed in 1905, initially used to aid in the construction of Roosevelt Dam, offers a jagged stretch of the Salt River, which first nourished a thousand years of Salado civilization, receives its waters from the White Mountains and the Mogollon Rim country.

The Lost Dutchman

The route continues to amaze with its rich history as you are lead past the touristy ghost town of Goldfield and then to the rugged Lost Dutchman State Park. Goldfield enjoyed a flurry as a gold-mining town in the 1890s when a rich gold strike supported a population of up to 5,000, and yielded about $1.5 million in bullion before the mine shafts flooded and the ore played out in 1897. The town revived a few years ago as a tourist attraction, with reconstructed buildings, exhibits and a simulated mine tour. The Mammoth Steakhouse and Saloon caters to meandering visitors, actors put on weekend gunfights, and mine tours offer a glimpse of the deadly life of a hardscrabble miner.

The Lakeviews

Apache Lake comes into view from a striking vista point. Protected by the harrowing drive and the minimal facilities, Apache Lake offers excellent fishing and some of the best lakeside camping opportunities in central Arizona. It has a marina, complete with boat rentals, a restaurant, fishing shop and motel rooms, but remains much less developed or visited than Canyon Lake. When full, Apache Lake stretches for 17 miles and measures 266 feet deep, although drought has lately lowered lake levels. Isolated stands of cottonwoods, accessible only by boat, provide good camping spots.

Roosevelt Dam. After a succession of floods and droughts repeatedly debilitated a string of farming communities along the Salt River in Maricopa County, a coalition of politicians, farmers and others convinced the federal government to build a massive dam on the river to control floods, store water and generate power

Photo Courtesy of US Bureau of Reclamation

Roosevelt Dam

Faced with the floods and droughts, early Phoenix farmers pressed the federal government to build the dam that launched the reestablishment of the West. Roosevelt Dam created what was in 1911 the world’s largest artificial lake – Roosevelt Lake with a million-acre-foot capacity, a depth of up to 190 feet and 89 miles of shoreline. Wrestling the 344,000 cubic yards of masonry into place in the remote, flood-prone canyon proved unexpectedly dangerous. During construction, relying on an innovative 1,200-foot-long cable line with iron scoops that could hold 10 tons of rock and mortar, 42 men died.

Decades later, an analysis of the growth rings on ancient trees in cliff dwellings scattered throughout the Salt River watershed disclosed that the Salt River could generate much larger floods than the original dam engineers had anticipated. The discovery triggered in 1996 a $430 million upgrade of the dam, boosting its height 77 feet to 357 feet. The work included a $21 million, 1,080-foot-long bridge that stands as the longest, two-lane, single-span, steel-arch bridge in North America. The bridge, like a giant outstretched arm, reaches across the canyon of Roosevelt Lake, taking traffic off the top of the dam, which was barely wide enough to accommodate two Model T Fords abreast. Engineers significantly lowered the level of Roosevelt Lake during the project, and Arizona State University archaeologists conducted a series of archaeological digs around the lake. They found a huge complex of buildings that accommodated Salado farmers who irrigated with canals.

While it’s still unclear why the Salado Natives abandoned their homeland, this piece of mysterious history is tied into the rest of the amazing sights and antiquity – all on display along the Apache Trail.