Follow Tunnel Trail to a bit of Arizona's quirky past

Arizona's rich and sometimes wacky history has always interested me. And, because I come from a small copper-mining town, the state's mining history holds special fascination.

Mix in a little recreation and a lot of natural beauty and you've hit a trifecta in my estimation.

The Railroad Tunnel Trail below the Mogollon Rim near Payson is just such a triple-heaven jackpot.

I first came upon it by accident while training for the 2013 Zane Grey 50-mile Endurance Run. I had read about the ambitious 1883 project to blast a 3,100-foot-long tunnel through the Mogollon Rim to connect a rail line from Globe to Flagstaff for transporting copper and silver to the Atlantic-Pacific Railroad.

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Investors must have decided this was no way to run a railroad because funds dried up not once but twice. Some have speculated it might have been an investment scheme. At any rate, crews managed to blast a tunnel less than 100 feet into the rim before abandoning the project.

Oh well. They left behind a cool little piece of Arizona history that can be reached with a bit of sweat.

Railroad Tunnel Trail, a spur of the 2.2-mile Col. Devin Trail between Washington Park at the base of the rim and Rim Road atop it, will get you there.

I was running the Highline Trail in 2013 when I took a wrong turn onto Col. Devin Trail and just kept going until I reached the top of the rim. There, I asked a group of hikers if I was on or near the Highline Trail. They pointed over the edge.

"It's down there."

Crap.

Fortunately, they said they were headed that way and I could join them. However, they wanted to inspect the tunnel on the way down. Bonus!

During a recent hike, my wife and I decided to go back.

There are two ways to reach the tunnel. The shortest and easiest access is from above, where a sign marks the trail near a historical marker for the Battle of Big Dry Wash on Rim Road. The spur toward the tunnel begins after a half-mile descent. From there it is less than a quarter of a mile to the tunnel.

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It also can be reached by driving to Washington Park Trailhead, about 5 miles off of Control Road below the rim. That's where we started.

Leaving northwest out of the parking lot and heading west onto the Highline, we soon saw a marker for Col. Devin Trail and turned north onto it. The first 1.5 miles of Col. Devin follow the East Verde River and Ellison Creek, which is no place for ear buds.

The sound of running water and a breeze through ponderosa pines is beautiful hiking music. And there were butterflies everywhere.

At 1.5 miles a small sign marks the Tunnel Trail. It's rocky and moderately difficult. However, there is no marker in the middle of a switchback where the trail peels off to the east and then turns upward to the tunnel.

Of course, I missed it. So we ended up back atop the rim, pretty much exactly where I met the hikers two years earlier.

Crap.

No matter. The views from there are beautiful, and the missed trail was only a half mile down and easily spotted from above as we descended.

It gets a little tricky from there.

Storms in recent years have littered the route with downed trees and boulders. Previous hikers have marked what's left of the trail with rock cairns — small stacks of stones — but one of them actually led us away from the trail. After some boulder scrambling, we rejoined the path, climbed over a downed tree and came upon the tunnel.

A word of warning: The tunnel is not visible until you're virtually at it, which makes for a bit of worry and then a nice surprise.

The remains of a stone powder house, where blasting materials were stored, is mostly intact at the entrance of the tunnel. A well-used fire ring is just inside the entrance, and as we arrived two other hikers were using some of their drinking water to douse the remains of a fire left by some knuckleheads.

After exploring the tunnel, admiring the view and inspecting the powder house, we started back down, adding some rock cairns along the way.

The entire hike, even with the extra trip to the top of the rim, was only 43/4 miles. It's less than 11/2 miles round trip from Rim Road. It's rugged around the tunnel, but well worth the effort.

Those investors didn't strike it rich, but on this hike, you will.

Explore Arizona reporter Bob Young is a marathoner, triathlete and occasional ultra-marathoner. Reach him at 602-444-8271 or bob.young@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobYoungTHI.

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