When old highways die

Ther is something very sad and lonely about roadways that have been decommissioned. Northern Arizona is full of bits and pieces of old Route 66 and older SR89, if you are on the lookout for them. And they are accessible, being on federal and state land. Not so this old section of 89A recently replaced by a spiffy new 4-lane speedway between Prescott north and Prescott Valley. It's scheduled to become a part of a huge real estate subdivision one of these days when the market picks up again. And it's locked off. Twice.

Yes, that is the old railroad crossing, now the Peavine Trail, which means that if you walk long enough you can access the old road. Of course, you'd be trespassing.

What always shocks me is just how quickly the grass takes hold in abandoned asphalt. That white stripe is still pretty dang clean and yet the forces of nature and life are already breaking up the pavement, which gets other visitors, as well (below).

Really old, original road markers (above) and fairly new ones (below) are still in evidence out old 89A.

There are even remains of older roads (above). The two-track is strictly local, but the heavy cut is part of old Rte. 79, the earlier Prescott-Jerome highway, built when, of the two towns, Jerome was by every measure the more important and larger. Below, the latest version of 89A is visible in the distance.

The old road passed closer to our local volcano (Glassford Hill). Is that a blowout on the side of the mountain; I'd never noticed it before. And it offered a terrific view of Granite Mountain as you headed into Prescott.
Way lonely, right? This is the picture from my neighbor that piqued my interest in revisiting the old highway.

Heading downhill toward the Dells, the railroad crossing is barely visible in the background. Below, the road curves as it approaches the bridge across Granite Creek in the Dells. But travelling this section is a no-no, blocked completely off. Too bad.

There are times I really hate change!

Prescott Scenes: Foolsewoode and Jarart both photographed El Dia de Los Muertes; Tombo has found another of those low-key critter graffiti works, this one a squirrel; PrescottStyle is all about the great zombie celebration; an out-of-town grandmother took pictures on Mt. Vernon Street Halloween night, and Catalyst collected costumery on WhiskeyRow the same night.

Old 89A -- bridge, dam, ditch, gauge

I'm still not used to the idea of an SR89A with four lanes of traffic. Nor an on-ramp to a straight-away rather than a curve through rocks in the Dells to cross Granite Creek. In all the years that I've known Prescott, this pretty approach to the bridge is an essential start to the trip to Jerome. In case you've already forgotten, you take a right off SR89 at the Pinon Pines biker bar.

Drive a short distance and there's the old bridge, thoroughly blocked off by both a gate and a precast barrier.

Apparently the old-style railings (above) were sufficiently rotted on one side that they were replaced by more of those dreadful precast barriers (below). I could moan and groan about those barriers for as long as you'd listen; reason? They completely block off the view of any stream that one might be crossing on a bridge. In a dry state like Arizona, a glimpse of water in nature is to be savored, not censored.

Here is one such view (above) from the bridge, looking south toward the Dells. Looking to the north (below), one sees the dam, the gauge and the works controlling the old Chino Valley irrigation ditch.

As my neighbor and I walked toward the dam, I caught this view of the bridge, looking south. Note how un-bridgelike those dang precast barriers make the structure look.

The one shiny new gizmo among this collection of yesterday's engineering is a stream flow gauge operated by the USGS (above), which goes into action if we have flood waters. Below, you can see the start of the Chino Valley ditch which carried water from Granite Creek to farms to the north beginning in 1915. (It probably is already forgotten by many local folk that Watson and Willow Lakes were finally bought by the City of Prescott from the Chino Valley Irrigation District as recently as 1998.)

And, just for the record, a picture of GrannyJ photographing the fallen leaves floating on the still waters of the dammed creek.

On the road to Prescott Valley

And so friend Patty was heading over to the new Sam's Club and invited me along. I'll always jump at the chance for a ride to somewhere new to me; who knows what I might see.

Torn up streets from the SR89/SR69 work, that's what, except that the machines are creeping well into the city, tearing up the east end of Gurley here. (The picture of the Apache Motel is specifically for my friend from Aliso Viejo.)

The new underpass. Note art work; I think that the white is scheduled to disappear.

Of course, everyone is asking about the fate of that wide spot on the north side of SR69, next to the casino entrance. It has a very permanent look, as though the tribe has business plans.

Remnants of one of the old SR69s was quite visible when we stopped at Lowe's. If your eyes are better than mine, you can read the history of the highway below. If not, then hie yourself over to Lowe's and read the sign in person. Take a topo map with you to help visualizing the route. My memory from a '30s childhood in Phoenix is that the parental and grandparental units wouldn't have dreamed of taking the unpaved, rough Black Canyon Highway up to Prescott; the White Spar was paved, after all and besides, it went through the forest.

Two hilltops topped by housing outcrops. A move to zone against hilltop housing was stopped in its tracks once the sponsors realized that under a recent state constitutional amendment such zoning would be considered a "taking" of property [value], costing the city far too much. Ah well. I hope those folks enjoy their view.

Diamond Valley is a small unincorporated subdivision in the hills between Prescott and Prescott Valley; a feature is that many of the streets are named after gemstones. You'll find Diamond, Sapphire, Ruby, Jade and Emerald, as well as Onyx and Turquoise Drives. But developers wouldn't leave well enough alone -- in addition to these gems, they felt obligated to include the native rhinestone. Huh?

Further along, we spotted that interesting truck to the left above. As we caught up with the vehicle (below), my friend observed, "Oh -- that must be Thing One and Thing Two." I leave you on that Seussian note.

The several routes of SR69

Standing in the Best Buy parking lot, looking to the northwest, one gets a good picture of three different versions of SR69, the highway that links Prescott to Phoenix and points south ... to Flagstaff and points north (as well as east and west). When we first arrived in these parts, the highway that we knew was the abandoned road of the great gash in the hillside that's very visible in all these pictures. I believe that the current roadbed consists largely of a widening and straightening of the route, which had previously been leveled. If you look carefully, you will see a road line higher on the hill, one which follows the contours instead of fighting them. That much older road disappears into the hillside scraped by Lowe's (below), which is too bad -- I've always had a hankering to walk it.

This view shows a couple of tight curves in the old road. Of course, when I was young, the preferred route to Prescott was what was then US 89, the famous Mexico to Canada highway. Yes, it was all curves as it passed between the Bradshaws and Prietas, but it was paved. You couldn't say that for the Black Canyon Highway, the eastern route, of which this road section is a small part. I recall hearing the grown-ups talk about the dangers of the Black Canyon road, which they wouldn't dream of driving. How the world has changed in my lifetime!!

Road Trip 1: Cool Lava Flows

There's a temptation to compare digital point and shoot cameras to the old box Brownies. Yes, both were conceived as cameras for Everyman, and, indeed, both serve(d) that purpose well. One points; one shoots; one has a picture.

The resemblance stops there. Among the wonderful features of modern picture-taking technology is the shutter speed. It's high. Stops motion like you wouldn't believe. There's nothing like taking pictures out the windshield or the side window while a friend speeds down the highway!
Our return trip from Yarnell Tuesday gave me a chance to record those magnificent lava flows and mesas at the point halfway to the Sierra Prietas. SR89 swings a series of curves as it goes up and over the mesas. Just a short little segment of the road.

Aren't they beautiful? Again, I wonder where all the lava originated; that's a question I have often asked as I have wandered the area. There is, 10-15 miles to the south, Blowout Mountain. Might be the source; then again, might not. This isn't a section of Yavapai county that excites much study. The big geological money goes into potential copper mining sites or tracing water routes.

Very sere the day we drove through. Today there was an excellent rain, with more promised tomorrow. Perhaps we will see some greening yet before the heat crisps everything out.