Hannagan Meadow is a clearing in the high forest of eastern Arizona, at about nine thousand feet, and it feels more like Colorado or Montana than the desert state of popular imagination. Tall ponderosa pines, Douglas firs and aspens crowd around a wide, grassy meadow that is green in summer and white in winter, and the air smells of pine and cold earth. The road runs right past, and a small lodge and a few cabins stand at the edge of the trees.
The road is the Coronado Trail, US 191, which crosses the Mogollon Rim country from Springerville in the north to Clifton in the south, and has a reputation as one of the twistiest highways in the country. It climbs and drops through the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests with hundreds of bends in a little over a hundred miles, and the old name, US 666, earned it the nickname of the Devil's Highway until the number was changed in 2003. The trail is named after the Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, who passed through the region in 1540 while searching for the fabled cities of gold, though historians doubt that he followed this exact route.
Wildlife is abundant. Elk graze in the meadow at dawn and dusk, and their bugling in autumn is a haunting sound. Black bears, mule deer, wild turkeys and bald eagles live in the forest, and in the evening you may see animals at the road's edge, so ride carefully. The weather is changeable: snow can fall as early as October and as late as May, and storms build quickly in summer afternoons, with lightning on the high ridges. Temperatures at this height are cool even in July.
There is very little in the way of services. The lodge may offer meals and accommodation in season, but check ahead, and do not count on fuel anywhere near. Alpine, about thirty-five kilometres to the north, and Clifton, much further south, are the places to fill the tank, and the long stretch between them is the reason to carry water and a spare layer. Phone signal is patchy.
Stop and look at the meadow if elk are out, switch off the engine and wait. It is one of the quietest places on the whole road.