[AbueloBill]

Four of us from the Phoenix, AZ, area planned an overnight ride to eastern Arizona for the Coronado Trail. 

We met up at a staging area on the Beeline Hwy heading up towards Payson and breakfast.  Refueled and rode east and up the Mogollon Rim and onto the Colorado Plateau.  The Rim area is popular for its forests and lakes and is cool (relatively) in the summers.  We passed through Show Low (named for a ranching partnership that was dissolved by drawing a card, the low draw got the ranch) and east through the Apache reservation towards Springerville.   But once we topped out in the White Mountains we took the side road towards Alpine past Mt Baldy, the Sunrise ski area, and Big Lake.  Photos from this area attached.

We stayed at the Sportsman Motel, Frank there is a rider and has the only paved area of the parking lot seemingly reserved for motorcycles.  Across the road is a meadow area, the dots in the photo are elk that came down to graze.

Next morning we started south on the Trail and had breakfast at the lodge at Hannagan Meadows.  The highway, renamed the Coronado Trail, is part of the Mexico to Canada Highway, 191.  Originally called the Devil's Highway due to its number, 666, it was the sixth major highway off Route 66.  The road itself is narrow, steep, twisty, and condition ranged from gravelly to recently repaved.  In the roughly 90 miles from Alpine to the copper mine at Morenci I counted 10 4-wheel vehicles, 6 motorcycles, an occasional deer, and one suicidal squirrel. Weather was perfect with frost in the morning and 90+ near home.

After food and fuel in Safford we separated for our rides home.  No issues with my Int650, rode 558 miles and used 7.89 gallons. 

[Landisr]

Thanks, Bill!  ;-)

[AzCal Retred]

Lots of photogenic geology up there! I once rode the 666 up from Morenci after coming over from Tucson. Somewhere before Alpine I ran into a section of road covered inexplicably with white gravel. About 100 yards into the "graveled" section it dawned on my desert dried brain that I was riding on a layer of fresh hail...Fortunately there was some traction to be had in the car tire tracks, and a convenient Mom 'n Pop diner provided hot coffee to us 12 turistas that had stopped to wait out the newly icy road. 1/2 hour later the hail was melted off and I was able to continue on to Show Low. Good Times!