# @downinnadesert on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/Ddm3cpGD_JC
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/70864491-downinnadesert-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/edfa8d9ef1.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-09-22T23:00:46.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Down In The Desert🌵 (@downinnadesert) — https://gondola.cc/downinnadesert

## Caption

There’s a state highway in Arizona with a sign on it that says primitive road.

It’s on the Apache Trail, State Route 88, the old road that winds from Apache Junction past Tortilla Flat and Canyon Lake up to Roosevelt Dam. It was originally cut through those mountains to haul supplies for the dam over a hundred years ago, and it’s one of only four roads the state officially designates as historic.

In June 2019, the Woodbury Fire burned more than 100,000 acres along the trail. A few months later, heavy rain from what was left of Hurricane Lorena poured off the burned hillsides with nothing to hold it back, and it tore the road apart.

The worst of it was a five mile stretch over Fish Creek Hill, the steep, narrow section that runs along the edge of a cliff. ADOT closed it. It stayed closed for five years. Before the fire, about 232 cars a day drove that stretch.

In September 2024, ADOT reopened it after a $4 million temporary fix. But only for high clearance four wheel drives and UTVs. And it put up signs you do not normally see on a state highway. Caution. Primitive road. No trailers. Four wheel drive and UTVs only.

ADOT estimated at the time that a full repair, the kind that would let a regular car back on it, would cost around $33 million, and said it was seeking federal money to pay for it.

Then this July, monsoon storms dumped more than eight inches of rain near the Reavis Trailhead and more than five near Fish Creek Hill, and part of the road was damaged all over again. ADOT had it back open by July 23.

ADOT’s own warning says it best. Conditions can change after every rain, and the road you drive today may not be the road you find after the next storm. Check az511.gov before you head out there.

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#ApacheTrail #SR88 #TontoNationalForest #ArizonaNews #DownInnaDesert

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## Credits

No public credits are recorded here. This does not identify who made the post.

## Tags

apachetrail, downinnadesert, tontonationalforest, arizonanews, sr88

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