Salt River Canyon

This article really is just a preliminary report, but should be useful to other riders not having been through Salt River Canyon from the west side. As I wrote about in a previous article we got significant part of the way there when we visited Miami, AZ Recently. However, to go into more detail, just past Superior, AZ US 60 passes through Queen Creek Tunnel





The eastern end of the Queen Creek Tunnel

There is a turn out and day parking spot on the southern edge of the road just past the tunnel where one can pull over for a photo op or descend the rather steep and primitive trails to the bottom of the canyon for some hiking or rock climbing.



Rock Climbing in Queen Creek Canyon, AZ



Water, wind and time have created and enormous 3-D panorama of spires and other fascinating shapes here.



Interesting working on a photo job with the Wrench Wench...she sees small things, such as the lizard above who makes his home nearby, and I see the bigger, more dramatic scenes.



Beyond Queen creek stretches 15 miles of sweet canyon riding towards Miami heading toward Salt River Canyon. The road here is in excellent shape and this part of the ride consists mostly of back to back high speed sweepers. US60 then takes you through some more twisties and sweeper into Globe. Globe is a fairly large town for being in the middle of the desert and, most interestingly, still boasts a working drive in movie theater.





Great pillion (passenger) shot by Patti Weckerley.

Just past Globe pick up AZ 77 and ride north into Salt River Canyon. The road into the canyon continues to be of excellent quality and because it is cut out of parts of the mountain that are largely granitic, there is little danger of accidently washing out on a sand hazard or something of that nature. The road continues to get more interesting as one gets higher in the canyon. The aforementioned sweepers then become mixed up with an interesting assortment of twisties and switchbacks.



Another great pillion shot by Patti.

Our exploration of Salt Creek Canyon was unfortunately cut short by a mechanical failure which occurred at the Becker Butte Outlook. The view from which you see pictured. To our good fortune the machine was able to be restarted and ridden back to homebase. Which brings me back to what I said at the beginning of the article, this is really just a preliminary report because we were not able to finish exploring it.

However, what we did get to ride was outstanding and as you can see there are some breathtaking views. During the next couple of weeks or so a full report should be available. In the meantime, if you have a chance to head out that way it is a great ride and will take you about 300-350 miles round-trip give or take depending on where you start from in Phoenix. There is a Google map here, which will show you how to get there from the outskirts of metro. Some of the pins on the map are interactive and some are not, but it will point you in the right direction.

Back soon with a full report. In the meantime shiny side up!