AUGUST 2017 ESCAPE • EXPLORE • EXPERIENCE EXPLORE THE SAN FRANCISCO PEAKS Special Collector’s Issue � 2 EDITOR’S LETTER 32 ARIZONA’S TIP TOP 46 HART IS WHERE THE HOME IS 52 SCENIC DRIVE A story originally published in our August 1954 issue. For more than a thousand years, people Chevelon Canyon Lake: The Mogollon Rim gets 3 CONTRIBUTORS Grand Canyon By Weldon Heald have been flocking to the western flank of busy this time of year, especially at Woods Can- National Park Photographs by Josef Muench the San Francisco Peaks. First it was the yon Lake. However, not far from there, along a 4 LETTERS San Francisco Peaks Cohonina people, who hunted the area scenic road lined with giant ponderosas, is an 5 THE JOURNAL 38 WHERE THE WILD ORCHID GROWS around A.D. 600. Later came Frank Hart, for isolated lake that’s every bit as beautiful. Flagstaff whom the prairie is named. He was followed By Noah Austin August People, places and things from around the The number is counterintuitive, but Arizona ranks Chevelon Canyon Lake by the Dillmans, the Wilsons and, eventually, Photographs by Nick Berezenko state, including a history of the Bee Line third in the nation in terms of plant diversity, with PHOENIX The Nature Conservancy, whose Hart Prai- Alpine Dragway; roadrunners, which are members nearly 5,000 different species. Of that number, rie Preserve is home to the world’s largest Mesa of the cuckoo family; the Toasted Owl in more than 800 grow in the San Francisco Peaks, 54 HIKE OF THE MONTH grove of Bebb willows. 2017 Flagstaff; and a flashback to Sheeps including Franciscan bluebells, mountain monar- Joe’s Canyon Trail: Of the five trails in Coronado Willcox By Kathy Montgomery Crossing in 1967. dellas, monkeyflowers, graceful buttercups and an National Memorial, the best is arguably Joe’s Coronado orchid commonly known as hooded lady’s tresses. Canyon, which winds through waves of grama National Memorial 16 THE BIG PICTURES: There’s a lot to see in the mountains, so we sent grasses that dispel stereotypes and come alive our writer and photographer out to have a look. with the summer rains. POINTS OF INTEREST IN THIS ISSUE THE SAN FRANCISCO PEAKS By Annette McGivney By Robert Stieve A Portfolio Edited by Jeff Kida Photographs by Eirini Pajak 56 WHERE IS THIS? 28 FROM A DISTANCE An Essay by Kelly Vaughn GET MORE ONLINE www.arizonahighways.com /azhighways @arizonahighways ◗ A desert tortoise makes slow and steady progress in Florence, southeast of Phoenix. Eirini Pajak CANON EOS 5D MARK II, 1/400 SEC, F/5.6, ISO 100, 220 MM LENS FRONT COVER: San Francisco Peaks illustration by Chris Gall BACK COVER: Government Prairie, a verdant grassland northwest of Flagstaff, offers a view of the distant San Francisco Peaks. Shane McDermott NIKON D3S, 1/6 SEC, F/16, ISO 100, 19 MM LENS 2 OCTOBER 2015 PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTS AVAILABLE Prints of some photographs in this issue are available for purchase. To view options, visit www.arizona highwaysprints.com. For more information, call 866-962-1191. www.arizonahighways.com 1 editor’s LETTER CONTRIBUTORS ANNETTE McGIVNEY is out in the wild, in search of the real thing. He Annette McGivney has lived AUGUST 2017 VOL. 93 NO. 8 has a reputation among naturalists in the South- in Flagstaff since 1996 and west for hiking far and fast — and for disproving 800-543-5432 says the San Francisco Peaks widely accepted assumptions about Arizona’s www.arizonahighways.com were part of what drew her plants.” GIFT SHOP: 602-712-2200 there. “I hike often in the This trip was no different. Almost immedi- Peaks — almost daily in the ately, in Lockett Meadow, the guerrilla spotted PUBLISHER Win Holden summer months,” she says. an orchid, and another flower he’d never seen EDITOR Robert Stieve But before tackling Where the For the most determined before. Later, they powered into the Inner Basin, ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER, Wild Orchid Grows (see page DIRECTOR OF mountaineers, conquering the “Seven Summits” where they found and photographed Franciscan SALES & MARKETING Kelly Mero 38), McGivney wasn’t all that is an irrepressible obsession. Mount Everest, bluebells, mountain monardellas and monkey- MANAGING EDITOR Kelly Vaughn familiar with the plants that grow on the mountains. “I wanted to get the insider’s view of the Peaks from the botanists and indigenous peoples who have an intimate connec- Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimanjaro, Mount Elbrus, flowers. But what they really wanted to find was ASSOCIATE EDITOR Noah Austin tion to the plants,” she says. “I was surprised to learn of the tribes’ complex rituals and Vinson Massif, Carstensz Pyramid ... those are a graceful buttercup. EDITORIAL the prerequisites for being considered an elite “With its alluring name and delicate yellow ADMINISTRATOR Nikki Kimbel beliefs surrounding the plants on the Peaks. I knew the tribes viewed the plants — and climber. They’re the seven highest mountains on the world’s seven continents. flowers,” Annette writes, “the graceful buttercup PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR Jeff Kida the mountains — as sacred, but I didn’t realize the extent to which that relationship “There is a queer urge in some people,” Weldon Heald wrote in our August has become something of an obsession for me. In CREATIVE DIRECTOR Barbara Glynn Denney impacts them. It’s as if the plants are a relative they must visit at certain times of year, 1954 issue. “To see a mountain is to want to get to the top of it. I am one of all of Arizona, it grows only in a few places high ART DIRECTOR Keith Whitney and care for in a certain way, for their own well-being — and for that of the plants.” these eccentrics with a bad case of mountainitis. The only known cure is a on the San Francisco Peaks.” McGivney’s spiritual place on the Peaks is a meadow high above the Kachina Trail. “It’s MAP DESIGNER Kevin Kibsey diet of high camps, vast panoramas and lofty summits against the blue sky.” Mountainitis. an off-trail slog through hip-high ferns and grasses,” she says, “but the view is spec- PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Michael Bianchi Our writer was being seduced by the San Francisco Peaks. Turns out, While Annette was searching for a holy grail tacular, and I always have it to myself.” McGivney has two books coming out later this WEBMASTER Victoria J. Snow there are seven summits up there, too. However, there’s no club of elite in the Inner Basin, Kathy Montgomery was on the year, one on a murder at the Grand Canyon and the other on building wood fires. mountaineers intent on climbing them. In fact, with the exception of map- other side of the mountain, on the western flank CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Nicole Bowman makers, forest rangers and maybe a few locals in Flagstaff, I doubt there are of the San Francisco Peaks, seeking out another FINANCE DIRECTOR Bob Allen many Arizonans who can even name all seven. The one everyone seems to unique plant. Hers, however, was easy to find. OPERATIONS/ IT MANAGER Cindy Bormanis know is Humphreys Peak, the highest point in the state. The other six are For more than two decades, Hart Prairie Pre- Agassiz, Fremont, Doyle, Schultz, Abineau and Rees. serve has protected what is thought to be the CORPORATE OR As a whole, Mr. Heald wrote in Arizona’s Tip Top, “the San Francisco Peaks world’s largest and southernmost grove of Bebb TRADE SALES 602-712-2018 exert a special allure to mountain addicts, for they rise abrupt and isolated willows. The Nature Conservancy, which owns SPONSORSHIP SALES more than a mile above piney Coconino Plateau and they look down upon the preserve, first learned about the bushy trees REPRESENTATION On Media Publications Todd Bresnahan everything else in the state. Wherever one goes in the Canyon Country, each in the early 1980s. Back then, the prairie was 602-445-7169 sweeping view includes the stately outline of this huge, old, peak-topped vol- owned by Dick Wilson, who, as a dutiful steward cano, its summit snows often appearing to float in the sky like a silver cloud.” of the land, agreed to protect the plants. Then, in LETTERS TO THE EDITOR [email protected] Ironically, despite the story’s headline, Mr. Heald never actually writes 1994, he took it a step further and donated the 2039 W. Lewis Avenue about the highest point in the state. The “tip top.” And it’s not clear whether entire property to The Nature Conservancy. Phoenix, AZ 85009 he ever made it. He does, however, make it to the timberline, which he In Hart Is Where the Home Is, you’ll learn more describes as “an exhilarating no-man’s-land between the familiar world of about the willows, and also the colorful human GOVERNOR Douglas A. Ducey vegetation below and the fascinating and mysterious arctic realm of rock, history of Hart Prairie, which served at differ- DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT snow and ice of the high peaks.” ent times as a hunting ground, a potato farm, a OF TRANSPORTATION John S. Halikowski “But the regions above timberline,” he adds, “are by no means as deso- sheep pasture, a cattle ranch, a stagecoach stop EIRINI PAJAK late as they first seem, and I came upon many diminutive gardens of bright and the state’s first Arabian horse breeding facil- Arizona Highways® (ISSN 0004-1521) is published month- Arizona Highways readers mostly know Eirini Pajak for her stunning photos of Arizona’s alpine flowers, grasses and ferns in the lee of sheltering rocks. They grew ity. Today, it’s mostly quiet.