Road Work around the Painted Pony Resort

It is 2.75 miles from Highway 80 to the entrance to the Painted Pony Resort which is on dirt roads.  With only 3 paved roads in the 330 square miles of the San Simon Valley (south of I-10) dirt roads are a way of life and road work is a necessity, especially on roads that are not maintained by the county.  This is important for guests visiting the Painted Pony Resort since they have spent time and energy driving out to visit and the last thing they would wish is travel over bad roads.  Dirt roads are subject to wash boarding and washouts during heavy down pours so constant attention is required.  The Painted Pony Resort maintains a road grader and tractor for use in road and property maintenance.  While most of the road is fairly easy to maintain, with cleaning side ditches and cattle guards, digging out wing ditches, and occasional roadbed raking, the corner from Night Hawk to Painted Pony Road is in a low spot and has a tendency to collect runoff.  Reshaping the road eliminated boggy spots but drainage and associated erosion is still an issue.  A potential remedy to the problem is to slow the water that drains onto and crosses the road so erosion is minimized and silt may be redeposited building up the road bed.  To that end small check dams have been built along bare areas and developing drainage's on the high side of the road where water flows off the land and rock was placed along the down slope side of the turn from Night Hawk onto Painted Pony.  The results of these efforts should start to become apparent with the ongoing monsoons.

Turn from Night Hawk to Painted Pony Road