The Black Mountains on Route 66: Arizona's Most Dramatic Landscape

The Black Mountains: Where Route 66 Becomes an Adventure

Between Kingman, Arizona and the Colorado River, Route 66 faces its most dramatic obstacle: the Black Mountains, a rugged volcanic range that stretches 75 miles from north to south and reaches nearly 5,500 feet at its highest point. The original Route 66, commissioned in 1926 along the National Old Trails Highway, was routed directly over these mountains via Sitgreaves Pass — a decision that created the most challenging, most scenic, and most historically significant stretch of the entire Arizona Mother Road. Hairpin turns, sheer drop-offs, panoramic desert views, the ruins of gold-mining ghost towns, bighorn sheep on the cliffs, and the famous wild burros of Oatman all await travelers who take the old road through the Black Mountains rather than the flat interstate bypass.

The Geology of the Black Mountains

The Black Mountains are a product of violent volcanic activity that began approximately 15 to 20 million years ago during the Miocene epoch. Massive basalt flows erupted over a base of ancient Precambrian granite, building up the range layer by layer. The dark volcanic rock — basalt and related igneous materials — gives the mountains their name and their distinctive color: in certain light conditions, particularly at dawn and dusk, the range appears almost black against the desert sky.

The geological story is more complex than simple lava flows, however. The mountains also contain Miocene-age volcanic tuff from massive eruptions in the southern range, intrusive dikes (the solidified remains of ancient lava that filled cracks in older rock), and dramatic erosional features that expose layers of geological time across the canyon walls. Thimble Butte, visible from the road near Cool Springs Station, is a classic volcanic plug — the hardened core of an ancient volcano exposed as the surrounding rock eroded away over millions of years. The “Witch’s Teat” formation nearby is another compelling volcanic remnant.

The range runs in a north-south alignment parallel to the Colorado River on its eastern side, extending approximately 75 miles in length and 10 miles in width. Its highest point is Mount Perkins at 5,456 feet. Route 66 crosses the range at Sitgreaves Pass at approximately 3,550–3,586 feet, which is the highest point on the entire Arizona Route 66 corridor west of Flagstaff and Kingman.

Human History in the Black Mountains

Ancient Trade Routes

Long before any European explorer crossed the Black Mountains, Native American peoples used passes and canyons through the range as trade routes. Archaeological evidence — pottery fragments, stone tools, rock carvings depicting bighorn sheep, spirals, and human figures — has been found near Sitgreaves Pass dating to approximately 900 AD. These ancient pathways through the mountains informed the routes chosen by later military surveyors and road builders, creating a continuity of human movement through the pass spanning more than a thousand years.

Gold and Silver: The Mining Era

The Black Mountains’ gold and silver deposits first attracted Anglo-American prospectors in the 1860s. Explorer John Moss reported gold in the area around 1863 but moved on to richer prospects elsewhere. It was not until 1900 that a major discovery transformed the mountains: a miner named Jose Jerez, grubstaked with $16 by Kingman store owner Henry Lovin, stumbled upon a rich ledge of gold-bearing quartz while searching for his lost burro. Assays returned 40 ounces of gold per ton. Within months, the Goldroad Mine was in operation, and investors were flowing in from California.

The 1915 discovery of additional gold deposits at Oatman brought another wave of development. At their combined peak, the Oatman and Goldroad mines produced over 1.8 million ounces of gold, with a combined value estimated at over $30 million. Goldroad alone had a population of 718 at its height. The mines were ordered closed during World War II as non-essential to the war effort, and most never reopened. Today, scattered ruins and active industrial operations mark the former mining landscape visible from the Route 66 corridor through the mountains.

Beale’s Wagon Road and the Military Legacy

Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale surveyed his wagon road through the Black Mountains in 1857, blazing the route that would eventually become Route 66. His expedition crossed at what would later be named Sitgreaves Pass and opened the corridor to westbound settlers. During World War II, U.S. Army truck driver trainees used the pass’s challenging grades — with a maximum slope of 10.2% and the aptly named “Devil’s Elbow” near the summit — to prepare for mountain driving conditions in the European theater. The steepest military highways in Europe were no match for drivers who had practiced on Sitgreaves Pass.

Route 66 Tours in Arizona

Driving Route 66 Through the Black Mountains

The Route

The Route 66 corridor through the Black Mountains runs approximately 42 miles from Kingman west through Golden Valley, up over Sitgreaves Pass, down through the Goldroad ghost town area, through Cool Springs Station, and into Oatman before continuing to Topock at the California border. This entire stretch is designated the Route 66 Historic Backcountry Byway by the Bureau of Land Management — one of the most formally recognized scenic driving experiences on the entire highway.

The Climb to Sitgreaves Pass

Leaving Kingman, the road initially crosses the flat expanse of Golden Valley before beginning to climb. The ascent covers 9 miles from the valley floor, gaining approximately 980 feet in just 1.8 miles at its steepest — a maximum grade of 10.2% that challenged every vehicle that traveled it from the Model T era through the present. At the summit viewpoint near the pass, the view west across the Colorado River valley into Nevada and California can stretch for 100 miles on a clear day. Temperatures at the summit are typically 15°F cooler than in the desert below.

The Western Descent

The west side of Sitgreaves Pass is where the drama peaks. The road drops 915 feet in just 4 miles through a series of sharp hairpin curves, with no shoulders and drop-offs that required significant courage from early motorists in the 1920s and 1930s. The ruins of the Summit Gas Station and Ice Cream Store — which burned in 1967 — can be found as iron bolts and crumbling foundation in a wide spot at the top. Below the summit, the ghost town ruins of Goldroad are visible in the canyons, with the active Gold Road Mine still operating further down.

Cool Springs Station

Partway down the western slope, the beautifully restored Cool Springs Station — an original 1920s gas station rebuilt in the early 2000s after being destroyed in the 1960s — provides one of the most atmospheric stops on the entire Black Mountains corridor. The setting against volcanic rock formations, combined with the sweep of the Colorado River Valley visible to the west, makes it one of the most photographed locations on all of Arizona’s Route 66.

Oatman

At the bottom of the Black Mountains’ western slope, Oatman, Arizona rewards the driver who has survived Sitgreaves Pass with wild burros in the streets, staged gunfights, the historic Oatman Hotel where Clark Gable and Carole Lombard honeymooned, and the irresistible charm of a genuine 1930s gold mining boomtown that never quite became a ghost town because the tourists kept arriving.

Wildlife of the Black Mountains

The Black Mountains support a surprisingly diverse array of wildlife given their rugged volcanic terrain. Desert bighorn sheep — approximately 150 individuals — inhabit the rocky cliffs along the Route 66 corridor, and are often visible in the early morning and late afternoon near the road. The sheep have been in the area since at least the 1850s, when they appear in the rock carvings near the pass. Mountain lions also inhabit the range, along with desert tortoises, Gila woodpeckers, golden eagles, and a variety of reptiles including rattlesnakes, which travelers should watch for when walking off the pavement.

The wild burros of Oatman — descendants of pack animals used in the gold mines — make their territory throughout the lower Black Mountains and regularly wander into Oatman’s main street. They are semi-wild, surprisingly friendly with tourists who offer “burro chow” from local vendors, and genuinely beloved as one of Route 66’s most charming and photogenic features.

Tips for Driving the Black Mountains

Vehicles longer than 40 feet are not permitted over Sitgreaves Pass — check your length before committing to this route. RV travelers should take I-40 instead.
Automatic transmission is strongly recommended — the steep grades and frequent turns make manual driving challenging for inexperienced mountain drivers.
No services exist between Kingman and Oatman — carry plenty of water, especially in summer when temperatures below the pass can exceed 110°F.
Summer temperatures in the lower Black Mountains near Oatman can be extreme — early morning drives are strongly recommended from June through September.
Stop at Cool Springs Station for photographs and a rest — the setting is exceptional and the stop is genuinely worthwhile.
Allow ample time in Oatman — the burros, gunfights, shops, and Oatman Hotel all deserve unhurried exploration.
Visit Shaffer Fish Bowl Springs on the route — a natural desert spring with canyon views, easily missed but worth the stop.

Final Thoughts on the Black Mountains

The Black Mountains are not a detour from Route 66 — they are Route 66 at its most elemental. The road that winds over Sitgreaves Pass and down to Oatman is the road that Dust Bowl migrants drove in terror and wonder, that early motorists struggled up in reverse, that Army truck drivers used to prepare for the roads of Europe, and that generations of road-trippers have used to access one of the American West’s most dramatic and historically layered landscapes. The Black Mountains make Arizona’s Route 66 more than a nostalgic drive — they make it an adventure.