Your destination? The Big Chino Wash. It drains the Chino Valley, north of Prescott. It feeds the headwaters of the Verde River on Old Hwy. 89, a spur of AZ Rte. 89, just south of Paulden.
There's an abandoned Santa Fe Railroad bridge across the little canyon where the waters from the intermittent Lake Sullivan make the first tentative stream of the Verde River. The Big Chino Wash and the Williamson Valley Wash feed Sullivan Lake and thus give birth to the Verde River.
The Big Chino Wash and its underlying aquifer are an important source of water to all the ranchers there but more importantly to city of Prescott, the county seat of Yavapai County. Greater Prescott has a population of more than 100,000 and has a lively arts district.
The Verde River is one of the few perennial streams in Arizona. It's an important tributary to the Gila River which drains almost all of southern Arizona.
Dramatic approaches
There are dramatic ways to get to the Big Chino Wash. If your fun, easy day trip brings you from Phoenix in the south, you may want to take the easy way, though less dramatic and use I-17 and exit at AZ Rte. 69. That would take you through Prescott. But if you're coming from Flagstaff, again using I-17, you may want to take exit 293, Cornville Rd. to Cottonwood and then continue on AZ Rte. 89A through Jerome and over the Mingus Mountain pass.
It goes over the Black Hills to the pass at 7,023 feet near Mingus Mountain. There are picnic tables and toilets at the National Forest Service's Mingus Mountain Recreation Area.
Then it is a short drive down the mountain into the Prescott Valley and then a right turn or north onto AZ Rte. 89 through the town of Chino Valley. Incidentally, Wikipedia says "Chino" is the Mexican name for the abundant curly grama grass growing in the area.
Just north of the Paulden Post Office, turn west onto Big Chino Rd. It is the spine of a sprawling ex-urbia. A sort of down-market suburbia full of double-wides and manufactured houses. The Big Chino Wash - dry of course - is off the west of the road in a depression. Incidentally it is a pretty good dirt road for Arizona. You can drive it in a two-wheel-drive sedan at 40 MPH without shaking any teeth loose in your head.
Enter the west's "wide, open spaces"
The Chino Valley is the western landscape that gives truth to the words "wide, open spaces." Tumbleweeds bound down the straight, straight road uninhibited. It's a high-desert grassland at over 4,500 feet. If you're lucky you'll see some Pronghorn Antelope.
The DeLorme Arizona atlas suggests one could drive to the end of Big Chino Road and find Forest Rd. 18. Forest Rd. 18 crosses Big Chino Wash so you could stand in the middle of it. Alas, the Big Chino Rd. ends at a forbidding gate to the T2 Ranch. The sign, listing 10 brands which the ranch runs, suggests size. However, at the fence of the T2 Ranch, there's a really good view of the Big Chino Wash and the Santa Maria Mountains in the background.
There is, in the face of the forbidding T2 Ranch sign, nothing to do but turn around and head back to Paulden.
But do take turnoff to the gate of the Lobo Ranch. "Lobo" being the Spanish word for "wolf." There's an impressive piece of art.
And don't forget the warning not to trespass. There's a reminder that includes the half-dozen or so coyotes - whose tails are strung up on the fence - who did it at their peril.
A chance for more adventures
You'll have to head back to civilization. At the junction of Big Chino Rd. and AZ Rte. 89 check your trip odometer. You could turn south to get back to Phoenix or Flagstaff the boring way or take the trip back over the Mingus Mountain pass and through Jerome. But if you're headed for Flagstaff, go north on AZ Rte. 89 to Ash Fork, at the junction of AZ Rte. 89 and I-40. Then go east on I-40 to Flagstaff - the detour is just a few miles less than 80 - to the junctions of I-40 and I-17.
More adventures await on that detour. You'll cross the Arizona Divide between Bellemont and Flagstaff on I-40. It's at an altitude of 7,335 feet, where the waters west and south flow into the Gila River and east and north into the Little Colorado. And near Bellemont is the best view of the highest mountain in Arizona, Humphreys Peak, at 12,637 feet.
If you start your fun, easy day trip after breakfast, you'll be home by supper with a head full of wide open spaces.
