June 12-June 15 with places to meet up if you can't do all four days.Day one starts at the QuikTrip near Ina and I-10. We take pavement out to Mammoth picking up any east siders on the way. After the cruising the main drag of Mammoth, we connect with Camino Rio Rd and follow this gravel road out to Dudleyville. This section of road offer a couple shady spots and pictures of your motorcycle with the wooden train bridges in the background. There are a couple cobble sections, and short sections of wash crossings. It’s enough to feel like off road, but not enough where you feel like you’re lacking skills.
At Dudleyville, we return to pavement and take the road into Winkelmann and our first fuel stop. After gassing up, we take a few curves through the active Ray mine, Kearny, and eventually into Superior. Highway 60 at this point has some twists as we climb through old mining towns of Top-of-the World, Miami, and Claypool. Claypool will be our next fuel stop, before we turn off toward Roosevelt Lake. Premium fuel is not available in Young, so top off if you need the good stuff.
At Roosevelt lake we head north on Hwy 288 where the road becomes rockier. We will be rewarded with trees, views of Pleasant Valley, and ultimately a stop at the Antler bar in Young.
After a burger and fries, we continue on mostly graded gravel up to the Mogollon Rim area. If you’ve never been to this area we can stop at the Mogollon Visitor Center before turning on Rim Road and making our way to Bear Canyon Lake. There is a campground, but if it’s full, we can find dispersed camping. Bring a fish pole and a license if you want to harass the trout with me.
Pack for dispersed camping - meaning have water and food. Keep in mind there are critters in the area so you need to keep your stuff tidy and secured.
It’s always questionable if we can have a campfire. We’ll try for a small one - make sure you save some water so we can extinguish it before bed.
Day two we are going to make our way on forest road I’ve never been on before, but they appear to be graded dirt, suitable for a car. The first place for food and fuel will be Heber, and this could be a good meet up spot for those who can’t make it on Friday. After Heber we will find our way to Show Low and Pinetop on familiar and unfamiliar roads. Again it’s mild dirt and pavement. The plan is to get into a campground at Big Lake. Dispersed camping is the backup plan. We will be close to Alpine in case you want to set up camp and go to town for any reason.
Day three will take us south of Big Lake an along the East Fork of the Black River. This will be a 4x4 road, but can be done with a stock SUV. We run the length of this, take some pictures, and end up on the old Devil’s Highway. We run this curvy road north into Alpine. Alpine to Springerville will be pavement that still have places that qualify as off road with the potholes. Springerville will be our fuel and food spot before getting back to the woods for a campsite. We follow Highway 60 to FR 3123. This will bring us back to dirt and exploring mild dirt roads. We will end the day at a dispersed camping area called Brown Creek Campground.
Our final Day (Day Four), we’ll make our way through the Pinetop County Club community and to the Hondah Casino. Fuel is available here. We can grab breakfast in Pinetop. There’s a coffeeshop I tend to frequent and they have great empanadas. But there’s lots of choices here. From Pinetop to the Salt River Canyon, we’ll take an alternate route that runs through the reservation. The scenery down to Whiteriver is worth taking the indirect route. When we link back with Highway 60, we will head south through the Salt River Canyon. Lots of curves and lots of views. We end up in Globe and from there back to our first fuel stop in Winkleman. At Winkelman we can determine if we want o take a detour to Willow Springs Road and back to Tucson, or hit the slab back to Tucson. I think we’ll want to use temperature as the determining factor. It might be getting warm at this point.
As we return to Tucson, we’ll have our discussed jumping off points. And then you’ll be ready to take a shower and sleep in a bed.
Event Venue
Quik Trip, 5050 W Ina Rd, Tucson, AZ 85743-8332, United States
Tickets
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
