Day 13 was poised around getting to and through the devil's highway (old route 666 - now route 191) We made it to the northern end handily, and spent the next 2 - 3 mind blowing hours on the greatest stretch of road either of us have ever encountered. This highway had the greatest mix of sweeping to tight turns that stretch over varied terrains, from alpine meadows to desert buttes. The highway has a reported > 1000 turns in 94 miles with ~525 in the lower half alone.
Besides all of that fun, it ends up going directly through the largest copper mine in the US. We stayed in the mining town of Morenci and got the low down on the mine from Lee, a worker we met at breakfast. Here's some of the statistic gold:
Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold mine, Morenci, AZ
founded 1875 - its an open-pit style mine
1st largest copper mine in the US
3rd largest in the world
on August 31st, 340 thousand tons of ore were extracted
in the mines prime a few years ago they'd pull 1 million tons a day
his truck hauls 310 tons in a single load
there are an expected 100 additional years of mining to be had (which does not include back-filling time)
Pretty cool stuff. Here are Day 10 pics / vids
Day 11 found us poised to strike for the border at last. We hit the road and in a few short hours we were turning south onto a two-lane country road that represents the last day of the CDT trail. Before long, we were at our destination and the end of phase two of our adventure a total of:
2600 miles (11 days) from our starting point at the Canadian border.
4237 miles (14 days) from our start in LA.
The Antelope Wells port of entry sees only 5 or so cars per day on weekdays and maybe up to 10 per weekend day... Yet the US government is constructing a brand new multi-million dollar port of entry facility about 30 yards down the street from this one. ?
On our way back we ran into our canadian buddy Kyle, who we think has been stalking us the whole trail via our tracking page... (he's "co-incidentally bumped into us" three times over 2600 miles of trail)
jk Kyle, have a fun, safe ride back home eh?
THEN, we hit the town of Willcox, AZ for the night and enjoyed some delicious mexican cuisine at "El Ranchero" proudly served by our snappy waitress, Carmen.
Here's some pics:
