Arizona republican., 1895-10-13
A NOTED THOROUGHFAEE How Tonto Basin Is
 Reached. Mountain Travel Under Es- peciai Difficulties. The Very Novel Break Used by Team sters on the Steep,
 OeScents.

There are two roads from Phoeni1
 to Globe One is by way of Riverside
 and Cane Springs canon. The other is
 by way of Mcdowell and Reno Pass
 Whichever road the wayfarer takes. he
 always wishes he had taken the other
 However rough the Riveside route may
 De, the fact is incontestible that the
 Reno road is far the sleeper in spots.
 Reno Pass, down the eastern slope of the Mazatzal range, and just to the south of Reno mountain, is gorge just about three miles long, and in that distance has fall of several thousand feet. The road was first con- structed by the government to furnish easier communication between Fort Mcdowell and Tonto Basin, wherein at the time was located the sub-post of Fort Reno. The original cost was said to have been above s1OO,OOO Since that time by private enterprise and by legislative appropriation, fully as much again has been spent upon the thoroughfare and most of the cost has been upon the road down the gap.
 At the bottom is deep gorge, and, peculiar it is to the uninitiated to note that it is almost filled with cedar and juniper trees, cut off at the butt and tumbIed in without method. No Jun1pers or cedars grow at the low elevation. The mystery finds explana- tlon in the fact that few teamsters ever trust to the strength of their brakes in descending the hill, and even the old familiar lock on the wheels is not to be used on account of the pounding received by the vehicle Tn dropping from stone to stone on the downward way. So a tree is cut in the cedar forest at the top of the ridge. and lashed to the hind axle of the wagon. and with this as a drag. the journey to the regions below is accom- pilshed with far greater degree of safety than could otherwise be done.
 Wrecks of wagons strew the road side and bits of boxes and of house. hold effects, show where the many have come to grief Sudden turns are necessary, where the raging torrent of the creek has cut off the road so care fully and expensively made, and oc- casional stretches there are where the roadway has been thrice constructed at different levels. Yet it is the only wagon road" into Tonto Basin from the west and must be travelled.
 Billy Moore is to be found at the Reno ranch, at the foot of the gap. on the site of the long-since deserted Fort Reno. Many is the entertaining cir cumstance he can tell regarding travel Non Reno, and he may be led to mar rate how he came down the grade one day with a four-horse wagon, and with his brake broken. It was case of gallop for the horses and of desperate 'hang-on" for Billy, but he made the bottom comparatively uninjured. He 1t was who captured Kid Thompson and his pal as they were entering Tonto, though not till after rifle duel that lasted all night, and good watch at Tonto's gateway he ever keeps.
 Moore's house is distant from Phoe- nix about seyenty-tWo miles and from | Mcdowell about thirty-fve. The last twenty miles comprise the rough DOT tion. The climb from Sunfower val ley to the top of the gap is not an easy one. Then there are sections where | the wagon axle drags on the soft gran 1te Of the road, while the wheels are far down in the ruts that have been made by quarter of century of | travel and by the rushing water. Screwtail hill, coming out of Round valley, is another two-mile stretch that tests even the endurance of a noun tain pony to climb, and here and there along the way are bits of road that re- mind one of the path trod by Dante in his famous visit to the regions beyond the Styx
 Still, in all, it is journey that well repays the sightseer, and the view of the wondrous basin of the Tonto, se- cured from the slopes of Mount Reno has few equals on earth.