The forest's western arm, around the towns of Show Low and Pinetop-Lakeside, has become popular among Phoenix residents as an escape hatch from summer's baking heat. The farther east you go, the wilder and more remote-feeling the country gets -- once you've passed the development around the Sunrise Ski Resort, there's only the postcard-perfect alpine village of Greer, some huge high-country ranch spreads, and the crossroads towns of Springerville and Eagar. Turn south onto the Coronado Trail (U.S. 191), and you'll access an area that's the closest thing this side of Alaska to terra incognita -- the Blue Range.