Peach Springs is the tribal headquarters for the reservation - a small settlement but with houses quite widely dispersed over a flat valley. Often, the earlier road can still be seen at one side (usually south) of the current highway, always a narrow track, sometimes asphalt with weeds, other times just overgrown stones, but still recognisably a road.įor 20 miles past the nice old town of Truxton, Route 66 runs through the south edge of the Hualapai Indian Reservation, which occupies a large area of virtually roadless land south of the Colorado River. East of the Hualapai Valley, the highway is still designated Route 66 but it does not quite follow the original route, since it has been rebuilt a short distance to one side to reduce gradients and straighten curves, as this road was one of the last sections to be replaced by the interstate. The valley is bordered to the northeast by the Grand Wash Cliffs, a high sandstone range that marks the edge of the Colorado Plateau, and provides an obstacle to Route 66, which has to bend back south then follow a ravine (Truxton Wash) through the edge of the hills. Other features of interest along the way include Red Lake, a colorful dry lake bed, and large forests of Joshua trees around the north end of the road, near the junction with the main route to Pearce Ferry. The valley is crossed by a long sandy side-track ( Antares Road), fine for all vehicles, that passes many scattered ramshackle dwellings typical of the Arizona desert, all surrounded by rusty machinery, abandoned outbuildings and old cars. Hualapai Valley and the Grand Wash CliffsĮast of Kingman, Route 66 follows the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) railway across the rather barren landscape of the Hualapai Valley, a very wide flat plain that stretches northwest for over 50 miles towards Lake Mead.
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