Rim Road East

Rim Road East runs over 55 miles along the edge of the Mogollon Rim from Forest Lakes to Showlow. The trail's western end is a popular camping destination and is busy on summer and fall weekends. There are scattered dispersed campsites along the trail and connecting forest roads. Rim Road East passes the Black Canyon Rim Campground, the Gentry and Deer Springs Lookout towers before ending ingloriously at a gate where the trail enters the Fort Apache Tribal Lands. Much of the road skirts the northern edge of the tribal lands. The trail shows evidence of the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Wildfire, at the time Arizona's worst recorded wildfire. Starting as two man-caused fires, the merger caused an enormous fire fed by dry conditions and strong winds. Most of the communities along the Mogollon Rim were evacuated, with over 400 homes destroyed. The fire was largely responsible for changing forest management with an emphasis on prescribed burns and forest thinning. The western end of the trail is mellow with a packed dirt surface. The central portion of the trail is bumpy with embedded rock. And the trail's eastern section has extremely deep ruts and should not be attempted after heavy rain.