This is the Salt River via Saguaro Lake or is the Lake via the Salt River... The Salt River (O'odham [Pima]: Onk Akimel, Yavapai: Hakanyacha or Hakathi:) is the largest tributary of the Gila River. The river is about 200 miles long. Its drainage basin is about 13,700 square miles large. The longest of the Salt River's many tributaries is the 195-mile Verde River. The Salt's headwaters tributaries, the Black River and East Fork, increase the river's total length to about 300 miles. The name Salt River comes from the fact that the river flows over large salt deposits shortly after the merging of the White and Black Rivers.