Stage 07 · Wed · Aug 12
The Divide
Albuquerque, NM → Flagstaff, AZ
The longest day of the rally is also its highest. West of Albuquerque the road climbs past Laguna and Acoma country, through Grants' old uranium-boom main street, and over the Continental Divide at 7,275 feet — the roof of Route 66, where rainfall chooses an ocean. Gallup follows, a railroad town wrapped in red rock, its El Rancho Hotel still wearing the signatures of the Hollywood westerns it hosted. Then Arizona: the painted badlands of the Petrified Forest, Holbrook's wigwam motel, Winslow standing on its corner, and Meteor Crater punched into the plateau. The day ends climbing into the largest ponderosa pine forest on earth, with Flagstaff at seven thousand feet — mountain air, railroad horns, and a downtown built for the road.
The stage map
5 waypoints on this leg — tap an icon on the map for the story. Peak 7,247 ft.
What to watch for
- LandmarkContinental Divide, NM — 7,275 ft, the roof of the route
- Route 66 loreEl Rancho Hotel, Gallup — still wearing the signatures of Hollywood westerns
- Neon & motelsWigwam Motel, Holbrook — sleep in a 1950 concrete teepee
- Roadside oddityStandin' on the corner in Winslow, Arizona — yes, that corner
- The viewMeteor Crater — a 550-foot hole punched into the plateau 50,000 years ago