The first of these two drives skirts the mountain's base through an area burned by a huge wildfire in 1951. It's a good place to see how a forest recovers from a fire of the sort that swept across Yellowstone National Park in 1988. The Blue Canyon Drive takes you down a series of switchbacks into a deep canyon that serves as home to a cottonwood shaded stream and lined by a community of rustic ranches. Along the Red Hill portion of this drive you'll get good views of the canyon as well as the mountain of the Blue Range that forms its rims. The Black River Loop has its share of meadows and forests too, but it stands out more for the fact that a portion of it parallels a scenic mountain stream that will have you wondering if you're strayed into Montana or Colorado.
Any time is a good time to come to the Alpine District to enjoy all the scenery it has to offer.
Even in the winter, when many of the back roads in the high country are closed, you can still drive the Coronado Trail past winter snowscapes sparkling in the sun under a blue Arizona sky. In the spring , melting snow fills mountain streams such as the Black River and its tributaries to brimming with more water than you thought you'd ever see in a state as arid as Arizona. Late spring and early summer begins the cavalcade of wildflowers that lasts right through to early fall. Grassy meadows, shaded forest openings and roadside slopes glow with hues of fiery crimson, cool lavender, bright orange and yellow. During fall, the color moves into the trees as aspens and oaks cover the areas around William's Valley and the slopes of Escudilla Mountain with blankets of gold and amber.