Discovering the Desert Foothills Scenic Drive
By Les Conklin
Published: Scottsdale Magazine/Summer 1996
The article is being published in three parts.
Part 1. Starts Here
Equipped with the old treasure map and a book on southwestern plants, I am eager to begin 
an unusual search in a place of unrivaled naturally beauty known as the Desert Foothills. A special place where the desert gradually rises to the mountains, creating slightly cooler temperatures and a lush landscape dotted with saguaros, palo verde, mesquite, and chollas, a landscape where the fertile desert floor covers the forgotten footprints of Apaches, prospectors, and pioneers.
The Desert Foothills Scenic Drive has helped many modern settlers and visitors learn the names of plants that are peculiar to the area. Twelve years ago, as new residents, my wife and I visited the small plant markers along the drive examining the plants and memorizing their strange names. Now, I am excited about spending a morning amidst the saguaros and palo verdes prospecting for the original markers and plant sites, many of which are missing or in need of repair.
In 1963, enthusiastic residents from the tiny community of Cave Creek used the old map to create the drive along the northern portions of Scottsdale and Cave Creek Roads. Fred Griffin, one of the drive’s founders explained, “Gladys Nisbet, a local botanist, picked the plants and drew the map so the rest of us would know what signs to make and where to put them. On Scottsdale Road she identified more than twenty species of trees, shrubs, and cacti on each side of the road. Volunteer straw bosses acted as laid-back foremen, while plant parents placed white rocks around each plant and posted a small redwood sign bearing the plant’s name in front of each site where it could be seen by motorists.
For more than three decades, the signs did their job of drawing attention to the variety of exotic plants found in the Desert Foothills. Our recent return visit to the drive reveals that younger vegetation is hiding some plant sites, several plants have died, and some signs and white rocks are missing. The drive needs attention!
The Desert Foothills Scenic Drive was Corky Cockburn’s brainchild. It took three phone calls to track her down so I could hear her story. “It was a moonlit evening in 1963. My husband and I and another couple were making the lonely, quiet drive home through the tall saguaros and thickets of jumping cholla. We spoke of our fear that the roadside would become lined with gas stations and stores. Creating the drive was our way of preserving the desert along the northern parts of Scottsdale and Cave Creek Roads, and it has worked to this day!”
Corky continued her story. “The Cave Creek Improvement Association got almost everyone in the Cave Creek-Carefree area involved in building the drive. The local lumber yard provided material at cost. Students painted. Businessmen routed, sawed, constructed, and installed the signs. Others cleaned the plants and the area around them.”
My decision to revisit the drive and begin the task of restoring it to its former glory coincided with the return of my sons, Bob and Geoff, both at home for a holiday. They eagerly asked to join the hunt.
Our jumping off point is the drive entry sign on the east side of Scottsdale Road about two miles north of Rawhide, the recreated 1880s town. We pull to the side of the road to examine the sign. The brown paint is weathered and the white paint is peeling off the letters, but we can read the proclamation routed into the wrinkled wood by drive founder, the late Les Rhuart. “Desert Foothills Scenic Drive – The Most Beautiful Desert in the World.” As the three of us take in the view of the McDowell Mountains rising gently to the east, and the rugged terrain of the Tonto National Forest to the north, we agree that the vintage sign still speaks the truth.
The drive once cut through an expanse of wild, unsettled land that separated Carefree and Cave Creek from the expanding cities of Phoenix and Scottsdale to the south. Scottsdale Road was quiet and lightly traveled. Now a busy highway, it provides easy access to golf courses, resorts, restaurants, shopping malls, and new residential developments scattered about the foothills. Tour busses frequently stop along the drive allowing visitors to stretch and take photographs of the towering saguaros.
Peering closely at the native vegetation, a loud tapping noise captures our attention. We watch as a Gila woodpecker begins tunneling a home in a forty-foot-tall saguaro just a few feet away. There are saguaros, which only grow in parts of Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, all along the drive. During cool May nights, the tip of every saguaro branch is covered with wax-white flowers. In June, these gentle giants bear purple fruit.
Continued Discovering the Desert Foothills Scenic Drive – Part 2
Related Articles
Discovering the Desert Foothills Scenic Drive – Introduction
Discovering the Desert Foothills Scenic Drive – Part 1
Discovering the Desert Foothills Scenic Drive – Part 2
Discovering the Desert Foothills Scenic Drive – Part 3
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