US 191 Morenci Reroute (Arizona)

[Max Rockatansky]

Well, seeing this thread is making my change my road trip route partway through.  I have been exploring various national parks in Utah and had planned to dip into Arizona.  I'm in Blanding, UT, tonight so heading straight south on 191 to hit up the Coronado Trail once more makes sense.  I live in Tacoma, WA, so it's somewhat unlikely I'll make it to eastern Arizona again for the foreseeable future...and it'd suck if I missed out on one last chance to be one of those 81 cars a day on that highway.  It's one of my favorite drives of all time.

I'm hoping to get that way in the next 12 months myself.  Really if the weather in the Sierras doesn't clear up in the next three weeks I might be heading to Arizona instead.

[JKRhodes]

ADOT got a fair amount of backlash over this from the local residents, along with the sheriffs, mayors, et al in surrounding counties and communities. Closure is no longer on the table.


http://www.eacourier.com/copper_era/news/adot-says-closure-of-coronado-trail-is-off-the-table/article_88732630-fa5b-11e7-b582-437db1355def.html

[Max Rockatansky]

ADOT got a fair amount of backlash over this from the local residents, along with the sheriffs, mayors, et al in surrounding counties and communities. Closure is no longer on the table.


http://www.eacourier.com/copper_era/news/adot-says-closure-of-coronado-trail-is-off-the-table/article_88732630-fa5b-11e7-b582-437db1355def.html

It almost sounds like this was all just a ploy from ADOT to get some local funds in the mix for maintenance.  Not surprisingly the local backlash was huge out in Greenlee County.  It will be interesting to see what all parties come up now that a closure is off the table.

[kwellada]

ADOT got a fair amount of backlash over this from the local residents, along with the sheriffs, mayors, et al in surrounding counties and communities. Closure is no longer on the table.


http://www.eacourier.com/copper_era/news/adot-says-closure-of-coronado-trail-is-off-the-table/article_88732630-fa5b-11e7-b582-437db1355def.html

You mean I drove this route today for nothing?   

Actually, it was just as fun as ever and the weather was actually almost exactly like it was the first time I drove it 14 years ago (light gray overcast, so no glaring sun around any given switchback).  The scenery is still so amazing along the way.  I took a lot of photos and probably will create an album of the route in the future.  Anyhow, for awhile I thought I'd be the only person between Alpine and Morenci, but there ended up being at least a dozen other people on the road, including several bikers. 

It still will be interesting to see what they do with the road through the mine, though.  It seems to go between two of the pits and I'm wondering if the mine owners are one day going to want to exploit whatever is underneath the road. 

[JKRhodes]

ADOT got a fair amount of backlash over this from the local residents, along with the sheriffs, mayors, et al in surrounding counties and communities. Closure is no longer on the table.


http://www.eacourier.com/copper_era/news/adot-says-closure-of-coronado-trail-is-off-the-table/article_88732630-fa5b-11e7-b582-437db1355def.html

You mean I drove this route today for nothing?   

Actually, it was just as fun as ever and the weather was actually almost exactly like it was the first time I drove it 14 years ago (light gray overcast, so no glaring sun around any given switchback).  The scenery is still so amazing along the way.  I took a lot of photos and probably will create an album of the route in the future.  Anyhow, for awhile I thought I'd be the only person between Alpine and Morenci, but there ended up being at least a dozen other people on the road, including several bikers. 

It still will be interesting to see what they do with the road through the mine, though.  It seems to go between two of the pits and I'm wondering if the mine owners are one day going to want to exploit whatever is underneath the road.

That's been my thought as well, because it seems pretty clear based on the color that the land under the highway has a nice ore body under it.

It's definitely some challenging terrain; as the waste rock dumps east of the current highway get built higher, a detour (and mining under the current alignment) will eventually be feasible.

For now, the only option for a detour would be to run the highway parallel to the the haul truck road. But I don't think ADOT would ever allow the 10-13% grades that would involve, not to mention numerous additional manned haul truck crossings. Ccurrently there are two.