What it is
The Apache Trail is State Route 88, the road that leaves US 60 in Apache Junction and climbs northeast through the Superstitions to Roosevelt Dam, about forty-six miles in all. It was built between 1903 and 1905 as the supply road for the dam, much of it by Apache laborers, and it has been sold to tourists since the Southern Pacific Railroad put the name on it a decade later. Theodore Roosevelt drove it to dedicate the dam. Arizona made it one of four state Historic Roads in 1987. Our lexicon entry has the history; this page is about driving it now.
For almost everyone, the Apache Trail means the eighteen paved miles from Apache Junction to Tortilla Flat. In that stretch you pass the Superstition Mountain Museum, Goldfield Ghost Town and Lost Dutchman State Park in the first six miles, then climb over a ridge and drop in switchbacks to Canyon Lake, cross two historic bridges from 1924 and 1937, and arrive at the saloon in Tortilla Flat, population six, where the pavement ends. Past it the road turns to dirt and climbs Fish Creek Hill, a one-lane shelf on a cliff that was closed from 2019 to 2024 after floods off the Woodbury Fire burn scar tore it apart. ADOT spent $4 million rebuilding it and reopened it in September 2024 for high-clearance four-wheel-drive vehicles and UTVs only, with no trailers, and it still closes after storms and for the paving work near Roosevelt.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Because it is the one real mountain road within a day of a Scottsdale resort, and because every other page in the Superstitions section of this site is a stop on it. Our day trips note ranks it with Sedona as a drive, at a third of the distance.
The practical version
About 55 minutes from Old Town to the start of the Trail. A half day out and back to Tortilla Flat in any car; a full day for the loop through Roosevelt, Globe and Superior in a four-wheel drive, after checking az511 that morning. Go between October and April. Canyon Lake is closed for a dam inspection through about the end of 2026, but the road is open.
When to go
November through March, on a weekday if you can. The switchbacks above Canyon Lake face west and the afternoon light on the way home is the postcard; the morning drive out is for getting to the stops before the tour vans from the resorts, which arrive at Goldfield around eleven and Tortilla Flat around noon. Winter weekends bring the motorcycles, which rate the road as one of the ten best rides in the country and ride it accordingly; give them room on the blind curves.
Summer is possible to Tortilla Flat and inadvisable beyond it. The pavement has no shade, the switchbacks test a rental’s cooling system, and the monsoon closes the dirt section without notice; it did in July 2026.
The stops, in order from Apache Junction
- Superstition Mountain Museum (mile 3.5). The legend, the stamp mill and the Elvis chapel; ninety minutes.
- Goldfield Ghost Town (mile 4.5). The mine tour and the train; an hour, or lunch at the saloon.
- Lost Dutchman State Park (mile 5). The Treasure Loop if you have the morning; the view from the park road if you do not.
- The Canyon Lake vistas (miles 13 to 15). Two pullouts at the top and bottom of the grade. The lake is drawn down and the recreation sites around it are closed for the rest of 2026, but the view still works.
- The bridges. The Mormon Flat Bridge of 1924 and the Boulder Creek Bridge of 1937, just before town.
- Tortilla Flat (mile 18). Chili, a saddle at the bar, prickly pear gelato, the end of the pavement.
Past the pavement
Fish Creek Hill is the five miles that give the road its reputation: a one-lane grade cut into a cliff with the creek a long way down. With a true high-clearance four-wheel drive and a dry forecast it is driveable and spectacular, and the stretch beyond it along Apache Lake to Roosevelt is lonelier and lovelier than anything on the paved section. In an SUV rented at the airport, it is not for you, and the signs will say so. Our desert tours note lists the jeep outfits that run it with someone else driving.
The story
Phoenix exists because of the Roosevelt Dam, and the dam exists because of this road. When the Salt River Project’s predecessors won federal backing for a dam at the Tonto Basin, the first problem was getting cement, machinery and men to a canyon sixty miles from the Mesa railhead. The supply road was begun in 1903 and finished in 1905, and the labor was in large part Apache men from the San Carlos reservation, working the grade by hand along an older footpath. Freight wagons and then motor trucks ran it for the six years of dam construction, and Roosevelt himself rode it in 1911 to dedicate the dam and pronounce the view the most awe-inspiring in the country.
The Southern Pacific saw a tourist product and, around 1915, began selling motor tours of the Apache Trail to passengers on its transcontinental trains. The road became State Route 88 in 1927, was paved from Apache Junction to Canyon Lake in the late 1940s, and settled into its long second life as the Valley’s Sunday drive. The state designated the Apache Trail Historic Road in 1987.
The closure that defined its recent history came in 2019. The Woodbury Fire burned the slopes above Fish Creek that summer, and in September the remnants of Hurricane Lorena dropped a storm on the burn scar that sent debris flows down the hill and took the road with them. ADOT closed the unpaved section from about milepost 222 to 229 and, for five years, the Apache Trail ended at Tortilla Flat for everyone. A $4 million restoration reopened the closed miles in September 2024, but as a limited-access road: high-clearance four-wheel drives and UTVs only, no trailers. Monsoon damage closed and reopened the stretch between Roosevelt Dam and Fish Creek Hill again in July 2026, and ADOT’s paving project west of the dam has brought scheduled closures of its own. The Tonto National Forest alerts page and az511 are the two things to read before you go.
The Scottsdale connection
Scottsdale’s resorts were selling Apache Trail excursions in the touring-car era and are selling them now, through the jeep companies and the Dolly Steamboat packages. The road is also where the Valley’s water story becomes visible: the canals that run through Scottsdale start at the dams this road was built to construct, which is a thing worth knowing while you stand at the Canyon Lake vista.
Getting there
From Old Town, the 101 south to the 202 east, the 202 to US 60 east through Mesa, exit Idaho Road and go north about two miles to the Apache Trail (SR 88); turn right and the Trail begins. About 55 minutes with no traffic. Fill the tank in Apache Junction; there is no fuel on the Trail. The return in daylight is better than the return in the dark, so turn around at Tortilla Flat by three in winter.