Sitgreaves Pass

Sitgreaves Pass is a gap in Arizona’s Black Mountains. Located on the Oatman Highway section of Route 66, it offers natural beauty and real danger in equal measures.

The first known European to have passed through the gap is Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who was commissioned to survey and construct what became Beale’s Wagon Road. When he climbed over the pass in 1857, he wasn’t riding a motorcycle but a camel, as the exotic beasts of burden were a great fit for the Arizona desert.

Beale originally named the gap John Howells Pass. However, it was later renamed in honor of Capt Lorenzo Sitgreaves of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. He led an expedition to the Zuni and Colorado rivers in 1851, although he never crossed the Black Mountains along this particular pass.

From the top of Sitgreaves Pass opens a wide-ranging, expansive view of the surrounding mountains and desert. It’s a dry, rugged, and rocky view that really drives home how challenging life in the desert can be.

Getting to the pass, however, can be just as challenging. Oatman Highway, with its steep inclines and sharp hairpins with no guardrails, is infamously difficult to complete.