Beeline Highway: Bush Highway to Payson

The Beeline Highway is the main road from the Phoenix area up to Payson and the pine country of the Mogollon Rim. This drive starts at the Bush Highway interchange, where the Beeline and the old Bush Highway come together, and runs north through saguaro desert and the foothills of the Mazatzal Mountains. It ends in Payson, at roughly 5,000 feet, where the cactus gives way to oak and pine.

The name goes back to the 1950s, when a cutoff from Mesa toward Saguaro Lake saved drivers about 15 minutes over the slower Bush Highway. It stuck, and spread to the whole road. Today it is a four-lane highway, widened in stages from 1989 to 2001, so this is an easy, relaxed climb rather than a twisting one. Near the top, northbound and southbound traffic use different canyons: the old alignment carries the southbound lanes and a newer one carries the northbound lanes.

Sunflower, the small community off the old Beeline, is the one named stop along the way. Past the top, the highway meets Highway 188 at Jakes Corner, which leads east toward Roosevelt Lake, and then carries on to Payson, where it joins Highway 260.