When I’ve mentioned to my new neighbors that I’ve been riding the dirt roads and trails in the Arkansas Hills a couple of them have asked, “Have you been to Turret?”

Huh? Where?

There’s a whole network of dirt roads running through the Arkansas Hills.  County roads, forest service roads, old mining roads and goat tracks.  I had only scratched the surface in my exploring but I’d never seen a town of any kind up there.  A look at a map doesn’t show anything in the area named Turret and I was beginning to think it was some kind of local snipe hunt thing.  Hey, let’s see if we can get the new guy lost in the mountains!  But Google knows about Turret (of course) so my skepticism turned to curiosity and I decided to do a little gravel ride to find this unicorn of a town, this Atlantis of the Rockies for myself.

The sign you can’t wait to see on any gravel ride.

Ooh, even better!

Weird green rock outcropping.

Got to keep those marauding gangs of cattle out of the National Forest.

Still some snow in the shade.

Nice little cabin in the woods.

Old marble quarry.  Probably a cool place for a dip in the summer.  In March, not so much.  

According to Google, county road 184 dead ends at Turret.  What Google doesn’t tell you is before it does, county road 184 first climbs up a ridiculously steep ridge for about a quarter mile.  While not technically a 4wd road, it clearly feels like the sort of road someone builds when they don’t want people dropping in unannounced.  I was beginning to understand why I’d never heard of Turret.

Almost to the top.

But I’ll tell you what, the views from the top of that ridge make the lung busting climb worth it.  Mt Antero and Mt. Princeton.

Mt. Princeton and Mt. Yale.

Beautiful downtown Turret.  It really does exist!  The town sits at the bottom of what is essentially a box canyon surrounded by huge rock formations on three sides.  As we discovered in our visit to Winfield, apparently buying a lot in a ghost town for your first or second home is a thing these days.  Turret probably has more private residences than Winfield, some of them quite nice.   The historical buildings aren’t quite as well preserved, but the whole place is an interesting piece of local history and worth the trip to see. 

Mix of old and new.

There were several of these tiny houses, basically one-room cabins, each fairly newish.

Old well.

Nice new build.

The old post office.  Closed in 1939 and converted into a single-family home.  And it’s for sale.  Own a piece of history!

Heading home. The Sangre de Cristos come into view. Beautiful, but a little distracting when you’re descending on gravel at 30 mph.

Oh, and because I got a Garmin for my birthday, here are the stats from my out and back to Turret.  When you’ve spent years riding in a place as flat as Houston it’s kind of interesting to see what terrain does to your ride.