October 5, 2023 – I broke camp at Apache Lake and made a spontaneous decision to visit the upper reaches of Roosevelt Lake. I was curious to see the last of the free-flowing Salt River before it emptied into Roosevelt. I retraced my path over the Apache Trail and then headed east on Arizona State Road 188, roughly paralleling the shoreline of the lake until I reached State Road 288, where I turned north and headed toward a bridge over the Salt River that showed on my map.
As I neared the bridge, I saw a pull-off that looked like it led down to the river, so I turned and followed it west. Shortly thereafter, I came to a small parking lot where the signage indicated it was the parking lot where rafters from the Salt River Canyon Wilderness Area disembarked. There was a path leading down the river, which I followed for a short distance to the bridge and the takeout point.
A sign on the bridge warned rafters to takeout now to avoid a waterfall downstream. I photographed the old bridge. Downstream lay Roosevelt Lake; upstream lay the Salt River Canyon Wilderness. I thoroughly enjoyed the dividing line, but my curiosity piqued about the waterfall. I couldn’t resist heading downstream to find it.
A short distance downstream, maybe three-quarters of mile, I found it: a diversion dam! I was not expecting it to find a dam here. The dam was constructed of concrete and water flowed over it in a series of little steps. Clearly, the dam was meant to divert water into a canal. I did not expect a canal, either. I photographed the dam and studied it from different angles.
I was scratching my head when I finally realized what I was looking at: the old Power Line Canal Diversion Dam. Back when Roosevelt Dam was built, a 19-mile-long canal was constructed to provide hydroelectric power to equipment and buildings at the dam site. This was the diversion dam that gated the Salt River into the canal.
The Power Line Canal and Diversion Dam have been discontinued for many, many years, but their remains still stand in testimony to the preliminary construction activities that took place before Roosevelt Dam could even be built, just like the Apache Trail road. It was fascinating to get this glimpse of history, and I kicked myself for not having planned the adventure in the first place.
What was a spontaneous decision at the time to visit the upper reaches of Roosevelt Lake turned out to be a stroke of serendipity.