In a way, this is the big one: 4.9 miles from the junction of the Southern Canal and Val Vista Road to a bridge at the spillway of the dam. From the bridge to the Bush Highway on Granite Reef Dam Road is a further .8 mile. The 5.7 total miles recorded on my odometer track perfectly with the 5.66 miles of the Google Earth Route. It seemed longer. Wait. That didn't sound right--the surface is often rough on the north side of the canal (which you want to use, for reasons that will become clear later), but there is great scenery and no major road crossing.
Early in the ride, which I undertook in the early morning, the canal crosses under the 202 freeway. A bobcat was ambling down the path, coming out from an orange grove where he'd almost certainly spent the night. Past the orange grove on the north side of the 202, the canal goes through Pima reservation land on one side. On the other side are other isolated homesteads (including one fenced one with interesting signs) and a gravel operation. When the path gets close to the dam, the south side of the canal is cut down through the rock of some slopes, and there's no trail on that side. At the dam spillway, I saw cows grazing; a bridge allowed me to cross the canal to Granite Reef Dam Road, which leads out to the Bush Highway (coming the other direction last week, there are a number of Keep Out signs on Granite Reef Dam Road, but the road itself is not blocked).
The Bush Highway climbs steeply back up to McDowell Road, which is a good route back west to Mesa.
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