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Feb 20, 2024 | 
arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin
North of Clarkdale, at the end of a long, twisting road that starts out paved and ends as a rough dirt path, you’ll find the Parsons Trailhead. And following the Parsons Trail about a mile into Sycamore Canyon — first down a rocky slope, then along a sandy path, shaded by cottonwoods and sycamores, that parallels the canyon’s namesake creek just north of where it empties into the Verde River — will take you to Summer Spring.
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Jan 31, 2024 | 
arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin
The more than 30 state parks and natural areas in Arizona now include their first new park since 2016: Rockin' River Ranch State Park, which opens Friday, February 9, in Camp Verde. A grand opening ceremony featuring Governor Katie Hobbs is planned for 1 p.m. Thursday, February 8, Arizona State Parks and Trails said in a news release.
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Jan 24, 2024 | 
arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin |Kathy Montgomery |Robert Stieve |Kelly Vaughn
When it comes to public lands, Alaska is the most privileged state in the union. With more than 325 million acres of state and federal jurisdiction, there’s an endless stream of recreational opportunities up there. At the other end of the spectrum is Delaware, which has less than a thousand acres. Somewhere in between is Arizona — we rank fourth, behind Alaska, Nevada and California.
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Jan 23, 2024 | 
arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin
When you’re driving to Temple Bar, there are two things you have to remember: Stay on the paved road, and keep going. Those directions are straightforward enough that you wouldn’t think people would have trouble. But people have trouble.
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Oct 25, 2023 | 
arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin
The Fryes — Karen, a software engineer, and Matt, a carpenter — were living in Tucson several years ago when they took a road trip to this old mining town at the foot of the Coronado Trail. “We fell in love with the landscape,” Matt recalls, but a dilapidated building along Park Avenue, on the east side of the San Francisco River, also caught their eye.
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Oct 17, 2023 | 
arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin
Many members of the Hualapai Tribe have memories of the old gas station near the corner of Historic Route 66 and Diamond Creek Road. For tribal Chairwoman Sherry Parker, one memory is the strongest. “I remember the smell — it was like oil,” says Parker, who’s lived in the tribe’s capital of Peach Springs for most of her life. “When I was maybe 11 or 12, we used to go in there. They would sell candy and soda, and there were people working on tires and doing mechanic stuff.
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Sep 18, 2023 | 
arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin
Bailey Dilgard has a dead porcupine in the bed of her truck. That’s one of the things I notice when I accompany her down a remote, rutted road in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests south of Vernon. The porcupine’s sharp quills, she explains, were no match for a car tire on State Route 260, the main east-west route through Eastern Arizona’s White Mountains. When she saw the roadkill, she picked it up to keep other animals from scavenging it and meeting the same fate.
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Aug 27, 2023 | 
arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin
But Shep’s also boasts a history as rich as that of this former silver mining boomtown. Its thick adobe walls date to the mid-to-late 1800s, when the building was constructed as a stagecoach stop. Later, it was used to house miners and their families, and after that, it became a motor court along Second Street, which at that time was the main route through town.
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Aug 8, 2023 | 
arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin
Growing up in Tokyo has a way of making a person yearn for wide-open spaces. At least, that was the case for Jeremy Budge, who spent his formative years in one of the planet’s biggest cities. “I needed to get out into nature and escape all that,” he says.
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Apr 19, 2023 | 
arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin
The Grand Canyon is always evolving, but on a much longer timeline than the average visitor can perceive. And the lodging options at Grand Canyon National Park reflect that sense of permanence. So, when it was time to build the park’s first new accommodations in more than half a century, it was important to get it right.
