Connecting Table Mesa Road and FR 24, FR 41 can be a quick 19 mile trip or a full blown all day adventure if you take all the side roads and connecting trails. The beautiful landscape of the Tonto Forrest is top notch as you follow the trail through and over the mountains. Most of the trail is a calm, sandy and rocky road, but there are a few spots where four-wheel-drive may be required. While the river bed is dry most of the year, a heavy rain can change the difficulty drastically with the dried mud holes turning into sloppy mud pits and the river crossing rising to a couple feet deep. Overall, this uncommonly traveled trail is a must do if you're around the Phoenix area and enjoy getting away from everything to enjoy incredible scenery.
Travel north on I-17 to exit 236 Table Mesa Road and turn right. There is a staging area just east of the interstate. There is also a staging area exactly one mile east down Table Mesa Road.
Tonto National Forest has been temporarily closed because of extreme fire conditions. This is a link to the official closure notice https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/tonto/news-events/?cid=FSEPRD759503
My first time driving and I got lessons on a bit of everything. Went out in Jeeps and had a blast. Some spots were intimidating for a first timer, but I was too stubborn to give up. Multiple water crossings, some steep rocky areas, sandy spots, and a small washout. Never got stuck, but there were some hairy moments. My experienced driver friend admitted that this was definitely NOT a beginner trail, but I still passed. :) SO MUCH FUN!!!
In it's current state, I would not attempt this trail without 4 wheel drive.
First of all, this trail was a blast. Having said that I would no longer consider this trail to be "moderate". It was a very, very wet winter and as a result portions of the trail are completely washed out leaving behind large boulders. I tagged a long in my long bed tacoma with a jeep grand cherokee and a two door wrangler and we barely made it through. Took about five hours to go from the 17 and table mesa all the way through to carefree. We spotted each other at numerous places due to all the rocks and trail washouts. Definitely got a few more dents on the armor on my truck. The trail in it's current state is not suitable for CUVs (hyundai Tucson, explorer etc) in my opinion.
If you are going to tackle this trail alone, bring plenty of water and some recovery gear in case you get stuck on a rock on one of the water crossings like I almost did.
What a great trail, very diverse in scenery as you travel from west to east. I would highly recommend this trail for anyone looking for a trail close to Phoenix and wants to feel away from it all!
I ran this trail with a large group after a few good rains and a snowmelt so there were lots of water crossings and flower bursts making it absolutely gorgeous and fun. The main trail was easy but there were a few offshoots and hills around it that looked more challenging that I want to go back and try.
We traveled this trail a couple of days after some heavy rain. Plenty of deep mud. Three of the river crossings required some scouting before venturing across. Bounced off a few hidden boulders that would be visible with low water. Beautiful scenery and easy to moderate trail. Nothing really technical
Relatively easy trail for the most part. There are a few parts that are a bit more "technical" but aren't hard at all. Nice scenery and we went after a few monsoons so there was a lot more mud puddles to play around in.
Nice trail to go and and have some lunch at some point and then came down back to Phoenix through Cave Creek
Todd is an avid wheeler who loves to explore new trails whenever and wherever he can. They say necessity is the mother of all invention and that holds true for Todd. His want and desire to find passable trails and new nooks and crannies of the Great American West to explore were his reasons behind starting Trailsoffroad.com. On any given weekend you can find Todd on some obscure 4x4 trail or using his legs to hike to an alpine lake.
