The Transitory Landscape of Indian Road 18

Cell phone service is dead before you even hit Peach Springs. In fact, the last place for services of any kind was 45 miles behind you in the town of Kingman, AZ. Welcome to historic Route 66.

About 7 miles east of Peach Springs is a sign for a road marked "Indian Road 18." There's nothing special about it. There are no signs that say where that road leads. It's just a junction marker that most probably miss as they continue on their way, taking in the sights and peculiarities of the old Route 66. About 20 miles up ahead is an run-down motel with a huge sign advertising tours into "The Incredible and Unique Grand Canyon Caverns!" There's a 40-foot paper-machè brontosaurus standing in front of it. I don't know what this means.

Fifty or so miles behind you is Kingman, a town so over run with strip malls and fast food joints, it's hard to imagine how this place ever fit within the culture of Route 66. Smack dab in the middle of it is an old American-Indian novelty store, complete with giant wood carvings outside the entrance and huge dream catchers hanging from the eaves that could quite possibly be larger than my arm span. I shake my head.

If you make a left (or right, depending on which direction you're coming from) onto Indian Road 18 however, things take a turn. About a half a mile in, you'll see a carved, worn-down, wooden sign (which I unfortunately didn't get a photo of) informing you that you are now officially on Indian Reservation land, and that by entering that land, you submit yourself to the laws and regulations of the Havasupai Indian Tribe, which exist outside of those of the U.S. This sounds foreboding. It's not.


For the next 65 miles, you will encounter nothing but wide open, barely touched American land. Shrubs and bushes surround you at first, with large, black hills rising from the tundra-like landscape in the distance. Soon you find yourself amidst a forest of pine and cedar, which eventually gives way to wide open prairie, rocky desert, and finally winding gullies that tease you with glimpses of the western Grand Canyon around every turn.

You finally end your long, silent drive at Hualapai Hilltop, where the trail down to the village of Supai and Havasu Falls begins. If you decide to wander that far, your journey has only just begun.