Morenci Southern Exploration - part 2

It was almost 1 year ago that I first explored a portion of the Morenci Southern NG grade. On that hike we hit the Owl Canyon bridge and the tunnels up along the San Francisco River. This time I wanted to head further south and try to hit the two remaining metal bridges that I could make out in the aerial photos.

I decided to head in on a dirt road that would put us within about 1/4 mile of the first bridge. The dirt road is off of highway 666 (oops that is bad, the new number is 191) about 1 mile south of the Old Safford Road (or Black Hills Byway). We would travel about 3.7 miles down this road to reach the grade. I would recommend high clearance for the last stretch (4 wheel if you want to go beyond the grade and down to river level). Along this road we would pass under the Arizona Eastern as it crosses with a short wooden trestle. We then parallel the SG tracks for a bit and then pass by a power substation. From this point we pretty much paralleled the high voltage lines all the way to the grade. We parked under the lines by a couple of poles just beyond the grade.

This shot is the start of our hike. It is pretty hard to miss the grade as it is now used for a fence line. In this shot you can see a distant cut just to the left of the fence line. Beyond that will be the bridge that we have set out to find.



The grade is pretty easy to walk but you do have to contend with the overgrowth in spots. Some of that stuff has some pretty nasty thorns which is why I rarely hike in shorts in AZ. This shot is at the cut just north of the bridge site.



Beyond the cut we catch our first glimpse of the bridge that we are searching for. The hope is that this bridge will be our mystery bridge from the 1923 magazine photo. We can see the characteristic rock formations in the region all around this site. It looks like it just might be it.



Dave



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2009 08:40PM by ROW Explorer.