After leaving Springerville and heading S on the Coronado Way, the road rose quite qickly to about 8500 feet through the White Mountains. Not sure whether they are named after the rather distinctive pale soil or because it's very snowy there in winter. It's very much a hunting area in summer and skiing in winter.
There were initially some alpine-like meadows around a town called...Alpine! It then became pine forest for for much of the N half of the route, a lot of it still in the early stages of recovery from a fierce wildfire in 2011. Further S, the road neared some ridges and some view points appeared. The first was called 'Blue Vista' for obvious reasons. It is hard to get meaningful pics of such wide vistas when the contrast is washed out by the haze and it was very cloudy today. Anyway, I'll put up a few from my phone shortly and we'll see how they go.
Further S, as the road drops down to about 4000 feet through some nice hairpins, there is a huge Freemont copper mine that seems to be gnawing the side of a mountain away, as well as going deeply into a pit.
From there, it was down to the plain and over to the freeway for the run into Tucson. Detoured to the E Saguaro National Park on the fringe of Tucson to scope out the vegetation on the way in. Staying tonight in Tucson near Arizona State Uni.
Pics to follow.
It was the "LOTFAP" I didn't understand...
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