I’m Colton Reyes, and I started North Desert Moving back in 2016
I grew up in the Verde Valley, the grandson of men who mined copper on Cleopatra Hill above Jerome and hauled ranch equipment and vineyard gear along the river bottom below Cottonwood. Before I started this company I spent nearly a decade running freight and heavy-equipment logistics through the Cottonwood-Clarkdale industrial corridor, and I watched enough Phoenix-based estimators pad a phone quote once the truck was already loaded to know exactly how not to run a moving company.
So in 2016 I started North Desert Moving on one rule that hasn’t moved since: lock the flat rate in writing before the truck rolls. No hour-creep once we clear the Mingus Mountain grade, no surprise switchback fee in Jerome, no add-on charge because the driveway turned out to be gravel. The number you sign at your kitchen table is the number you pay when we hand you the keys.
What we look like on the ground
- 17 uniformed movers on the roster — every one W-2, background-checked, in a North Desert Moving polo.
- Own trucks staged at our Old Town Cottonwood yard, blanket-stocked and shrink-wrap-stocked every night.
- Same crew, both ends on local Verde Valley jobs — no handoff to a stranger at the Clarkdale line.
- Arizona household-goods carrier permit on file with ADOT, plus US DOT and MC authority for the long-haul I-17 runs.
The Verde Valley we actually move
We carry Old Town wine-district loft tenants down Main Street on a Saturday morning between tasting-room deliveries, and we hand-carry pianos and gun safes down Jerome’s near-vertical switchback streets where a 26-foot truck simply cannot turn. We stage early most July mornings, because monsoon-season dust storms and flash-flood-prone washes have a way of shutting down AZ-89A by early afternoon. A good share of our calls are Sedona and Village of Oak Creek families priced out of red-rock real estate, relocating down the canyon corridor into Cottonwood instead.
The team you’ll meet
- Marisol Peña runs the office. She handles your quote, your COI, and your bill.
- Grant Ashworth dispatches, building the daily truck board across the Verde Valley and the Prescott corridor.
- Silas Whitmore is my lead crew chief — pianos, gun safes, and the Jerome hand-carry jobs.
- Reuben Castillo runs our long-haul board, the I-17 corridor down to Phoenix and back.
- Tanner Briggs specializes in the Mingus Mountain pass and the Prescott-corridor runs.
What you’ll spend with us
Local hourly rate is $159/hr for two movers and a truck, $209/hr for three movers and a truck — blankets, dollies, shrink-wrap, and drive time included, one-hour minimum. Long-haul is a binding flat rate written before we load. See the full local rate sheet or request a free written quote and Marisol will get back to you the same day.