AzT Trailtown amenities

[heyyou]

In Pine AZ, That Brewery (formerly Rim Cafe, first business on left from the AzT highway crossing) is now serving their own beer(That Amber, That Pale Ale, & That Strawberry Blonde) with seven other craft brews on tap. That Arizona Trail Ale is due soon. The menu has appetizers, four salads, pizza, four entrees, and the seven sandwiches have your choice of burger, chicken breast, or veggie burger, with several side dishes available. The patio seating is nice for pedestrians who just walked the 23 miles from the LF Ranch. That Brewery has a couple of cabins to rent, too.

Also in Pine, the Ponderosa Market grocery store, next to the Sidewinder saloon, has a bakery. While still warm, each $2 pastry is wrapped in Saran wrap. Tough to open, but nice for the freshness.

For thru hikers needing to pick up a resupply box, the Pine Post Office is not open on Saturdays. There is a laundry on the right, before the post office. The library is on a side street feeding left, past the post office.

[heyyou]

On the AzT, the LF Ranch is almost past the Mazatzals and 50 miles north of Sunflower, but there are no amenities at the Sunflower highway crossing. At Mary Ann Pratt's ranch, 90 miles past your last fresh food, warm shower, and indoor bed, she has all of those available at very low prices.

Dinner was hiker quantities of salad greens (grown on premises), roast beef (grown on premises), potatoes, vegetable, and fresh baked dessert with ice cream. Together with the shower and the comfortable night in the LF Ranch bunkhouse, that was my favorite trail stop on the whole AzT.

The refreshingly cold, well water from the faucet is good there too. You can ship a resupply box to Mary Ann's PO box in Payson, but plan for her to come to town once a week or less often. She will drive you to Payson for a fee that is less than a similarly long taxi ride elsewhere. It is about an hour out to the start of the pavement from her house, with frequent need for 4WD.

[heyyou]

In the community of Tonto Basin, a few miles from where the Four Peaks road heads uphill, Big Daddy's Pizza serves sandwiches, salads, and pizzas. On Fridays, some Mexican dishes are also available.

On the Supreme pizza, the toppings are so thick that there is no vacant space between each morsel, then the cheese goes on top. The result is the cheese gets nicely toasted and the pizza is at least an inch and half thick!

A purist could complain about the design, but will stop whining after tasting the first bite.

[The_Eagle]

That's the best Pizza I've had in the State of Arizona! Thanks.... now I'm hungry.

[Alston_Neal]

This is a really cool thread, thanks for posting it.

[heyyou]

In Patagonia, there is an RV park in the south 500 block of Harshaw Road, on the AzT route. The RV park has a spacious tent area, coin laundry, and no timer on the very clean, hot showers. If the park isn't full, car space #18 is a nice hammock hanging site. If solo, another private place to hang a hammock is across the back of the owner's boat storage cover.

The main grocery in town carries organic food, and the mom and pop convenience store has a few trail items, snack food, beer, local wines, and ice cream!

Ken and Kathy Morrow, Patagonia residents, offer a commercial shuttle service that I've used three times. Their range is from Tucson airport through Sierra Vista to the parking lot of the AzT's Mexico trail head. Besides their nice car, they also have a Jeep SUV for dirt road shuttles.

[azbackpackr]

Gotta love trail angels!

[heyyou]

Stateline Trail Head: This at the Utah line, and there is no town, no water, just a no fee, gov't campground with shade covers over the picnic tables and amazing layered red rock scenery, including the Navajo sandstone that decorates Lake Powell. The state line is between the road and the camp sites, so welcome to Utah. This campground is used by hikers who are visiting the upper Paria and Buckskin slot canyons, and the petrified sand dunes of The Wave. Follow the AzT on a ridge, up hill fifty? yards to a picnic table with a large interpretive photo with all of the rock layers labelled. The photo is mounted to the under side of the shade cover. No sun damage and more resistive to human damage. I like that.

Note that the dirt road's number changes at the state line. Driving north for seven miles on the dirt, intersects the paved highway between Page AZ and Kanab UT, while going south for 15? miles on the same dirt road meets the AZ state highway between Lee's Ferry and Jacob Lake. Currently (Spring 2013) the highway between Lee's Ferry and Page is closed due to the road bed cracking where it is built on the side of an 800' cliff (Navajo sandstone). Repair time is expected to be two years.