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Home , Mount Hopkins (Arizona), Warren Earp

Mysteries Swirl About the ‘Other’ Earp’s Willcox Grave

SEPTEMBER 2005

Explore ’s 6 National Forests n 12 Unique Family Adventures n A Rim With a View n Thumb Butte Wildlife n Rangers Tell Strange Tales Coppermine {departments} Trading Post 2 DEAR EDITOR SEPTEMBER 2005 Grand Canyon National Park Indian 3 ALL WHO WANDER Reservation There’s a synergy among squirrels, fungi and Thumb Butte Mogollon Rim This Land Is Your Land ponderosa pines. PHOENIX 4 VIEWFINDER CASA GRANDE HISTORY Digital manipulation TUCSON WILLCOX 10 Rim With a View 30 of photographs is a no-no. Mount Hopkins The ‘Other’ Earp's TOMBSTONE Our writer revisits the cliff country of his youth, 5 TAKING THE OFF-RAMP and gets a long, new view from a fire tower. Mystery Grave POINTS OF INTEREST Explore Arizona oddities, FEATURED IN THIS ISSUE BY CRAIG CHILDS Baby brother Warren Earp never caught attractions and pleasures. the same limelight as his well-known brothers of O.K. Corral shoot-out fame, 40 ALONG THE WAY 16 Forests Mark Centennial but he’s the only sibling buried in In the 1940s, cotton pickers in Arizona learned some hard lessons. After a hundred years, rangers still must balance Arizona. BY KATHLEEN WALKER competing demands. BY LEO W. BANKS 42 BACK ROAD ADVENTURE FOCUS ON NATURE Coppermine Trading Post 34 Explore this historic abandoned site and 28 Forest Adventures Move Over, Hummers its environs in Navajoland. Hike, fish, paddle, pan for gold, ride a train The “sweet tooth” of three nectar- 46 DESTINATION and more in our six national forests. loving species of bats puts them in Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory o competition for the sugarwater of BY J BETH JAMISON Getting up Mount Hopkins is half the fun. hummingbird feeders. BY CHARLES S. RAU Also see 48 HIKE OF THE MONTH Thumb Butte Loop Trail in Prescott National Forest HIKE Thumb Butte Wildlife, page 48 INDIAN CULTURE features falcons and Abert’s squirrels. DESTINATION Whipple Observatory, page 46 36 Hopi Artists Complete Circle Potters and carvers return to their native land Photographic Prints to discover renewed creativity and spirituality. Available BY KATHLEEN BRYANT PHOTOGRAPHS BY LARRY LINDAHL n Each month, prints of some photographs from Arizona Highways will be offered for sale, as designated in captions. To order prints, call toll-free (866) 962-1191 or visit www.magazineprints.com.

{highways on television} Arizona Highways magazine has inspired an independently produced weekly television series, hosted by Phoenix TV news anchor Robin Sewell. The half-hour program can be seen in several cities in English and Spanish. For channels and show times, log on to arizonahighways.com; click on “DISCOVER ARIZONA”; then click on the “Arizona Highways goes to television!” link on the right-hand side.

BATTY ABOUT AGAVE online arizonahighways.com [this page] Two lesser long-nosed bats grab a hit of nectar from agave This month on our Web site, you’ll find a wealth of information blossoms, providing pollination in about our national outdoor treasures. Go to arizonahighways.com return. See story, page 34. bat conservation international and click on the “National Treasures Guide” for: • More national forest adventures TAKING IN THE VIEW • Tips for visiting Mogollon Rim Country [front cover] A relaxed hiker in A travel planner to Arizona’s national parks Sedona's red rock country enjoys the • Coconino National Forest. See story, and monuments page 16. dugald bremner PLUS, get our regular monthly online-only features: INNER BASIN HUMOR Gene Perret explains “dry heat.” [back cover] A flare of aspens illuminates ONLINE EXTRA Journey to a historic . the edge of Lockett Meadow in the San WEEKEND GETAWAY Explore Fort . Francisco Peaks’ Inner Basin. paul gill TRAVEL THROUGH TIME Visit Arizona’s ghostly seaport. n To order a print of this photograph, see information above right. EXPERIENCE ARIZONA Plan a trip with our calendar. {dear editor} by Peter Aleshire, editor {all who wander} [email protected] SEPTEMBER 2005 VOL. 81, NO. 9

Publisher WIN HOLDEN Editor PETER ALESHIRE Senior Editor BETH DEVENY : Pimp, Hustler and Thug? Congratulations, Bob, on a terrific column and on Managing Editor RANDY SUMMERLIN For Want of a Fungus the Squirrel Is Lost — As Are We All Research Editor LORI K. BAKER Leo W. Banks’ article, “Wyatt Earp: The Post-shoot- an even better career. Thanks for sharing a good part Editorial Administrator CONNIE BOCH out Years” (April ’05), is fiction. Earp was never a of your working life with us. I know you will enjoy Administrative Assistant NIKKI KIMBEL he tassel-eared squirrel chitters. forests harboring certain kinds of root fungi. legitimate lawman for any length of time, and he whatever comes next. Director of Photography PETER ENSENBERGER The goshawk cries. Perhaps the truffles even help the squirrels digest Photography Editor RICHARD MAACK certainly wasn’t a hero. He was a thug, a gambler, a Don Hurzeler, Lake in the Hills, IL T And I ponder, leaning back against the the tough pine seeds and the cellulose in the tree’s pimp, a hustler, a con man and a world-class liar. You will be pleased to know that upon retirement Bob Art Director BARBARA GLYNN DENNEY vanilla-scented bark of a ponderosa that sprouted inner bark. In any case, something in the fungus is Deputy Art Director BILLIE JO BISHOP If there is a hero in the Tombstone saga, it can was promptly honored by the Society of Professional Art Assistant PAULY HELLER before Columbus sailed or the ancient essential to the squirrel. only be Sheriff John Behan, the man whose memory Journalists and the Arizona Press Club for a career Map Designer KEVIN KIBSEY vanished. So the squirrel sounds like a hungry fungus is today maligned. He was a courageous Arizona that has shaped journalism in this state for decades. Arizona Highways Books Here is what I wonder: Did Gifford Pinchot parasite. Editor BOB ALBANO pioneer, father, businessman, lawman, loyal public In his final year here, he put out the best travel Associate Editor EVELYN HOWELL grasp the significance of his obsessive Except for one thing. servant and a veteran of three wars. His rightful magazine in the West, according to the Associate Editor PK PERKIN McMAHON push a century ago to plant the seedling The squirrels spread fungus spores as they dig in place in Arizona history was stolen from him by the Publications Association. Nowadays, he’s teaching Production Director KIM ENSENBERGER of the Forest Service, which now the forest floor. Promotions Art Director RONDA JOHNSON purveyors of the false legend of Wyatt Earp. writing at Arizona State University and mentoring Webmaster VICKY SNOW safeguards more than 11 million acres in In fact, States found that only the spores he Gene Botts, Fernandina Beach, FL a new generation of writers. In fact, the only thing Director of Sales & Marketing KELLY MERO Arizona? extracted from squirrel feces would sprout and Wow. This sounds personal. Good thing about Bob that irritates me is that he left behind We celebrate his foresight in this grow on tree roots. Circulation Director HOLLY CARNAHAN didn’t hear you say that. Of course, history’s a slippery these enormous shoes I’m clumping about in. issue, with an anniversary story So the ponderosas make possible the fungus that Finance Director BOB ALLEN beast — especially when greased by movies and about the rickety beginnings of an makes possible the squirrels that make possible the Fulfillment Director VALERIE J. BECKETT memoirs. We keep trying to rub the facts hard enough Jumpin’ Geology agency that still strains to balance the fungus that mayhap make possible the trees. to glimpse the gleam of brass beneath the tarnish of As a geologist, I was particularly impressed by the Information Technology Manager CINDY BORMANIS jostling and jabbing of contending But wait. We’re not through. myth. I suspect the truth lies somewhere between your article “Earth’s Exotic Geology”(May ‘05) and its interests — environmentalists, hikers, Despite their service in spreading fungus FOR CUSTOMER INQUIRIES version and the last gushing Earp movie. graphics. I wish that everyone in my field had access OR TO ORDER BY PHONE: ranchers, loggers, hawks and squirrels. spores from root to root, the squirrels eat so many to it. The picture on page 22 with the jointing of the Call toll-free: (800) 543-5432 Did Pinchot know what he had pinecones, needles and even bark that they’d be In the Phoenix area or outside the U.S., Thanks, Bob Early bedded sandstone was a particularly outstanding Call (602) 712-2000 wrought? hard on the trees if their numbers got too high. In the April 2005 issue, I read and saved the column photograph of a geologic exposure. The veins or fins, Or visit us online at: Do we know even yet? Enter the goshawks. arizonahighways.com from retiring editor Bob Early (“Along the Way,” as they are described, are caused by groundwater. I think not. Goshawks live mostly on tassel-eared squirrels. For Corporate or Trade Sales: “The Poor Old Editor Bids Farewell — But Not to His The photograph is a textbook classic. DOLORES FIELD Just as an example, we still have but Perch hunters, they thrive under the forest canopy, Beloved Arizona”). Phil LaMoreaux, Tuscaloosa, AL Call (602) 712-2045 barely grasped the strange threesome of but can’t compete in the open against hawks E-MAIL “LETTERS TO THE EDITOR”: the hawk, the pine and the squirrel. that circle overhead looking for prey. So logging [email protected] But let me back up a bit. that has eliminated most old-growth forests has Regular Mail: Editor Out here in the forest, the ponderosas also hammered the goshawks, which are now Congratulations 2039 W. Lewis Ave. seem sovereign lords of a tranquil world, endangered. How then might the loss of the Phoenix, AZ 85009 indifferent to a squirrel’s scurry, a hawk’s goshawks affect the squirrels and the fungus and Governor Janet Napolitano swoop or a mushroom’s sprout. the trees? Director, Department of Transportation Winners Victor M. Mendez Think again. Think small. Stoop Of course, being human beings we jostle

MARTY CORDANO down. Consider the humble pine-root and jab — wanting to both turn the trees into at the Rancho de los Caballeros guest ranch ARIZONA TRANSPORTATION BOARD in Wickenburg. “I was shocked, I never win anything,” Chairman Dallas “Rusty” Gant, Wickenburg The tassel-eared squirrel thrives fungus, which contains the whole wide 2-by-4s and savor the rustle of needles in an old- Vice Chairman Richard “Dick” Hileman, on the “truffles” of ponderosa urse-midwife Wendy Hall, 54, and her office she said. “I’ve played slot machines with my little roll of world, folded up tight. growth forest. So we both bemoan and berate the Lake Havasu City pine-root fungi. N manager-daughter, Tammy, 22, had nearly given nickels. If I win $5, I’m thrilled.” Members James W. “Jim” Martin, Willcox The fungus grows on the ponderosa roots, endangered goshawk. Perhaps it is in our nature, Joe Lane, Phoenix up their dream of whitewater rafting through the Walt Paciorek of Phoenix, a 62-year-old chemical S.L. “Si” Schorr, Tucson producing both underground truffles and as it is natural for the squirrels to gobble the seeds Grand Canyon. For five years they’d applied for a engineer, can’t believe his luck either. He and his Delbert Householder, Thatcher aboveground mushrooms. of the trees that shelter them. rafting permit through a highly competitive lottery wife, Linda, a 61-year-old English and social studies Robert M. “Bob” Montoya, Flagstaff At first glance it seems a mere parasite. But leafing through the stunning photographs in system, but every year their hopes were dashed. teacher, will spend seven nights at Kay El Bar Guest INTERNATIONAL REGIONAL MAGAZINE ASSOCIATION But wait: The fungus pays its way. The fungus this issue of the places we’ve protected, I sniff the Then in April, the pair from Heber came upon Arizona Ranch in Wickenburg, where they’ll sample ranch life 2003, 2001, 2000, 1998, 1992, 1990 Magazine of the Year helps the roots absorb water and provides such damp, earthy connections that link the fungus, to Highways’ 80th anniversary trivia contest with the grand from a saddle. Paciorek admits he’s never been on a WESTERN PUBLICATIONS ASSOCIATION essential nutrients that the drought-tolerant the ponderosa, to the squirrel, to the goshawk to prize of — you guessed it — a seven-day raft trip for two horse more than an hour at a time, “but there’s a little 2002 Best Overall Consumer Publication through the Grand Canyon. This time, their chances cowboy in all of us.” 2004, 2002, 2001 Best Travel & In-transit Magazine ponderosas could not survive without its fungus Pinchot’s politics. rested more on their wits than luck. Here are the 10 other prizewinners of 2003, 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997, 1995, 1993, 1992 friend, according to research conducted by And I am perhaps unreasonably hopeful that Best Regional & State Magazine The mother-and-daughter trivia gumshoes trudged coffee-table, children’s and other books Northern Arizona University biologist Jack Sterling we may yet attain the wisdom of the fungus, SOCIETY OF AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITERS through Arizona Highways’ back issues, history books published by Arizona Highways: FOUNDATION States. which feeds the squirrel that spreads the spore that and the Internet — and even consulted an Arizona 1 – Gregory Dramer, Kalispell, Montana 2000, 1997 Gold Awards Best Monthly Travel Magazine But the fungus has a problem. nurtures the tree that harbors them all — even the history book author —all to land a perfect score. 2 – David Houdlette, Westbrook, Maine How can it spread to each new seedling to serve goshawk, waiting with patient claw. Granted, so did 271 out of the 1,410 entrants. But this 3 – Marlyse Waskiewicz, Orono, Maine Arizona Highways® (ISSN 0004-1521) is published as a fungal nanny? time they had the luck of the draw, when Tammy’s 4 – Margaret Schnaderbeck, Bozeman, Montana monthly by the Arizona Department of Transporta- tion. Subscription price: $21 a year in the U.S., $31 Enter the tassel-eared or Abert’s squirrel. name was picked in the recent drawing as the grand 5 – Stuart Stier, Phoenix in Can­ada, $34 elsewhere outside the U.S. Single copy: $3.99 U.S. Send subscription cor­respon­ Squirrels love the fungus and its truffle “fruit.’’ prizewinner. “I’m really excited about it,” she said 6 – Chuck Keller, Scottsdale dence and change of address information to Ari- zona Highways­ , 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ They can sniff out a truffle beneath a foot of enthusiastically. 7 – Brenda Brown, Benson 85009. Periodical postage paid at Phoenix, AZ and Two first-prizewinners also were chosen. Anna- 8 – Margit Kagerer, Carefree at additional mailing office. POSTMASTER­ : send snow, so the fungus sustains them during crucial address changes to Arizona High­ways, 2039 W. Lewis [email protected] Marie Rea, a 40-year-old general contractor in Vernon, 9 – William Johnson, Chandler Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85009. Copy­right © 2005 by portions of the year. Moreover, the truffles supply the Ari­zona Department of Trans­­por­­tation. Repro­ won six-night accommodations for two, plus meals, 10 – Jacinda Schou, Concord, New Hampshire duc­tion in whole or in part without­­ permission is minerals and nutrients so essential to the squirrels’ prohibited. The magazine does not accept and is not responsible for un­solicited ma­ter­ials provided survival that they only live in ponderosa pine for editorial con­sideration.

Produced in the USA 2 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 3 {viewfinder} by Peter Ensenberger, director of photography Arizona Oddities, Attractions & Pleasures {taking the off-ramp}

Since their 1996 second reintroduced condor flock EVENTS Digitally Manipulated Photographs Don’t Portray the Truth reintroduction in California has grown to 56, but in the Vermilion hasn’t produced as many chicks. overing the war in Iraq recently, by labeling it a “photo illustration.” But even Cliffs area north In Arizona, the condors have 9/05 Times photojournalist Brian then the technology should be used sparingly of the Grand nested in Grand Canyon caves shoot it out in C Walski demonstrated the dark underside and judiciously. Rules are especially critical for Canyon, the occupied by Ice Age condors 10,000 the streets at the of digital photography’s dawning age. Using photojournalism, documentary, wildlife and Arizona flock years ago. They also like hanging O.K. Corral during the Rendezvous laptop computer software, he combined nature photography. The litmus test must be of California out around the South Rim. of Gunfighters two digital images to create a single, visual narrow and stringent when making the decision condors has Condors vanished from Arizona September 3-5 lie. The original photographs show a British to modify an editorial photograph. grown to 53. in 1924, and by 1982 the California in Tombstone. You can join in soldier directing Iraqi civilians to take cover. A We confronted this very dilemma while The 26-pound flock had dwindled to 22. But the 1880s fun sharp-eyed editor discovered the composite selecting the cover photograph of our June issue scavengers a captive breeding program has by donning a costume for the photograph, and Walski was promptly fired on swimming holes. Our top choice for the front with 9-foot pushed the population to 130 Western parade. by the Times. Although protesting cover was a digital image scanned from film wingspans captive birds and 113 wild birds. Information: he intended only to improve the showing a swimmer underwater and the forest at started So we’re hanging on for word (520) 457-3548. composition with the blended image, creekside above water. We requested the original reproducing from the Grand Canyon nursery. Walski had inflicted another blow to transparency from the photographer and saw Welcome, in the wild in 2003. Alas, the first Maybe if the happy Arizona photographic integrity. some differences between the digital image and Condor Babies chick born starved to death. But flock keeps out-reproducing those Photography’s evolution from film to the transparency. Using computer software, the two born in 2004 have joined their California laggards, we can change digital evokes Charles Dickens’ opening photographer had removed a distracting white h, my, we’re so proud. elders. This spring, three more their name to Arizona condors. After from A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best tree trunk from the background of the digital Our magnificently ugly nesting pairs produced eggs. At all, the Grand Canyon State is happy of times; it was the worst of times.” image to improve the composition. We insisted on Olovebird condors have been press time, one nest had failed, to welcome newcomers — so long as Digital photography throws open the using the unadulterated film image on our cover. reproducing enthusiastically of late. but two had produced chicks. A we can assume bragging rights. door to a world of possibilities, making Of course, minor modifications are expected Clare Hoffman, flutist visual communication faster, easier and for both film and digital images being prepared more fun. for printing. Adjustments to sharpness, contrast, Get in the groove Flagstaff Rider Joins Tour of Hope at the Grand But it also pries open a publishing brightness, color and saturation help make each Canyon’s South Pandora’s box, especially the photograph in the magazine match the original lagstaff resident Scott monitoring. Six years and two Rim with a series of chamber manipulation of editorial images that transparency and achieve optimal print quality. Perelstein has a beautiful children later, he is cancer-free and concerts at the makes people wonder if they can believe That’s what software programs do best. family, a nice home and a grateful to Armstrong. Grand Canyon F Music Festival. what they’re seeing. Computer software But how do photography editors prevent the successful business — all things In September, Perelstein will get Planned for programs can ethically enhance images heavy-handed use of technology to deliberately he wouldn’t have without the to thank Armstrong in person. The September 7, Swatting Flies 9-11, 13, 16-17, or intentionally deceive viewers. In the change what an image communicates? help of legendary bicyclist Lance Flagstaff cyclist is one of 24 men 23-24 at the wrong hands, digital manipulation slips Image manipulation is not solely digital and Lies in Armstrong. and women chosen to participate Shrine of Ages, to the dark side. The unscrupulous photography’s domain. Photographers have used During the 1999 coverage of in the 3rd Annual Tour of Hope, this melodic Sulphur Springs adventure practices of a few cast a long shadow the printing process to modify film images in the the Tour de France bicycle race, sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb. features an of suspicion over all, eroding public darkroom for years. However, with film an editor aybe the sulfur poisoned the Armstrong promoted early detection The weeklong journey promotes the eclectic selection of music. confidence in published images. can check a photograph’s veracity against the M water supply. of testicular cancer by challenging necessity for clinical trials in cancer According to the May 17, 1890, Information: We scoff at the supermarket tabloids original transparency or negative. If the original men to conduct immediate self- research. (800) 997-8285; edition of www.grandcan for exploiting the technology to concoct is taken with a digital camera, will we need a examinations. Perelstein accepted Starting September 29, the yonmusicfest.org. NICK BEREZENKO newspaper, a farmer in Sulphur alien freaks and raunchy celebrities. signed affidavit from the photographer swearing Springs, located just this side of the the challenge, expecting to find cyclists will ride from to The original film version of our And it’s standard practice to manipulate an image has not been altered? U.S.–Mexico border, was reported to nothing more than peace of mind. Washington, D.C. The tour, with Join the flock June cover photograph is at top. advertising and commercial photography, Through 80 years of publishing, Arizona be the proud owner of a calf with two Instead he found three malignant Armstrong joining at select intervals, at Bye, Bye Below it is the manipulated digital because ads do not pretend to depict reality. Highways’ photographs have stood up under lumps — just in time. is expected to pass through Phoenix Buzzards on version of the same image. tails — one on the tail end and another September 17 at Likewise, images altered for artistic purposes scrutiny. During the Cold War in the 1960s, the growing out of its nose. The farmer Perelstein’s cancer required and southern Arizona on October 1. Boyce Thompson pose no ethical problems. Artists have always magazine’s beautiful portrayal of Arizona was claimed that the extra tail was already outpatient surgery and careful Information: www.tourofhope.org. Arboretum State Park and bid used technology creatively to expand horizons considered “propaganda” and not allowed into 2 feet long at the time of the report, and farewell to the and change perceptions. the Soviet Union. Today, when skeptical readers claimed it could swat flies as well as the local turkey one bringing up the rear. vultures as they But the rules are different for a magazine like wonder whether we “enhance” our photographs, pack up for Arizona Highways, which wants to show real we’re able to hold up the original transparencies, Despite the possible offers of their seasonal places and people. The established code of ethics proving that last light really does set sandstone on monetary gain, the unnamed farmer migration. insisted that the calf would never be Information: for publishers is no longer absolute. How much fire and turn the sky indigo blue before night falls. (520) 689-2811. manipulation is too much? So don’t worry. Even as we move into the put up for sale. Instead, he intended to try breeding more like it. Perhaps Policies governing the modification of digital age, Arizona Highways will insist that more someday all animal lovers could have For many photographs in Arizona Highways are simple photographs remain both beautiful and truthful. events, go to their very own double-tailed calf. arizonahighways. and strict. We will not move, add or remove After all, it is the best of times. Thank goodness it didn’t happen. com and click objects in a photograph without notifying readers on Experience That surely would have meant the Arizona. online Peter Ensenberger can be reached at demise of the flyswatter business.

Read more about photography at arizonahighways.com (Click on Photography) [email protected] CLOCKWISE MITCHELL; CHRISTIE FROM WWW.TOUROFHOPE.ORG; JACK CLEAVE; TOP LEFT: VAN LINDA LONGMIRE

4 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com 5 {taking the off-ramp}

Yuma Theatre Finds New Life patch of derelict buildings in downtown Yuma has been A transformed into a spiffy arts center where you can cheer on a senior citizens’ beauty pageant, view contemporary art and see a ballet, all in one day. At the center of it all is the Yuma Theatre, a 1911 movie and vaudeville house. Workers dodged mummified cats, uncovered unopened beer bottles from the Question Global 1930s and hauled out 22 tons of dirt of the Optimism in 5-gallon buckets in the course of Month “Pretty lively times restoring the place to its 1926 glory, What is in Globe as of late. when it was last remodeled. the oldest Two men murdered, They took great care to save Q continuously two lynched, one the lobby’s Works Progress inhabited suicide, one death Administration-era bas relief community in the from natural causes celebrating manly agricultural the Columbia Pictures logo. industrial, loft-style workspaces United States? and a first-class workers. But in the audience Two new visual-art facilities for artists and pot throwers. To the flood. These are chamber, they hardly had to touch straddle the theater, reopened in right rises a new, two-story building ? Established all good signs of ’s Name and against the United States in 1861. tree that forms the eyelash. the two large Anthony Heinsbergen early 2004. The one to the left, the that houses four art galleries, plus around prosperity and A Yet the name Cochise that was so Every few years, Arizona murals of figures that resemble United Building, is a 1940s retail classrooms and other facilities. A.D. 1150, Oraibi, the only thing Profile Live On terrifying was not a tribute to his Highways Photo Workshops goes to something between mermaids and store, gutted and refitted with Information: (928) 373-5202. located on the now needed for he legendary leader of the skills in battle, but came rather the Chiricahuas to take pictures of Hopi Indian complete happiness Chiricahua in the mid- from the word Goci meaning “his Cochise Head and the other rock Reservation in is a fire, which in the 1800s was a fierce, bold warrior nose,” a reference to the leader’s formations in nearby Chiricahua Spend a Night in northern Arizona, present condition T LIFE IN ARIZONA 1880s called Cochise. His name struck most prominent feature. National Monument. The next vies with Acoma of Globe would terror into many of southeastern In the Chiricahua Mountains, Chiricahua photo trip runs the Slammer Pueblo, New Mexico, destroy half the for the distinction, town.” Arizona’s settlers and soldiers. the formation Cochise Head (above) November 5-9, and is led by Young Preacher in Sin Town isbee’s OK Street Jailhouse, according to Byrd H. — The Globe Chronicle, After being wrongly accused of resembles a reclining face, complete Arizona Highways Director of the town’s first jail, built in Granger’s Arizona’s September 1879 a kidnapping and having some of with forehead, lips and a somewhat Photography Peter Ensenberger young ministerial student the courthouse at first, and he 1907, is now a vacation or B Names: X Marks his family killed, Cochise began an prominent schnoz. Look closely Information: (602) 712-2004; A named Endicott Peabody collected money for the new business suite. The downstairs often bloody 11-year guerilla war enough and you’ll even see the www.friendsofazhighways.com. (nicknamed “Cotty”) from Salem, church building from gamblers. jailer’s office serves as the entry the Place. Massachusetts, arrived in He also helped bury the dead area, the drunk tank makes Tombstone in January and was there when the living room and the heavily Crawfish Bad for Ecology, Good for the Pot 1882 to see about the great fire wiped barred upstairs cell is the building the out three blocks, bedroom. Furnishings include lthough crawfish (also called biologists at the Arizona Game crawfishing, pick up a pamphlet first Episcopal just a week early mining memorabilia. crawdads and crayfish in and Fish Department. Introduced and a free 25-minute video, church in before his 25th The $100 per night or $175 A some circles) aren’t a native by anglers as bait, these small “Arizona Lobster: Tips on Arizona. birthday. for two nights allows kids Arizona species, they thrive in the crustaceans are decimating Catching and Cooking Crayfish” Cotty, who You or friends to sleep in the state’s lakes and streams — much aquatic plants and wildlife at the Arizona Game and Fish was reared can read downstairs foldaway to the dismay of throughout Arizona. But this Department. The video takes in England, more about couch for $5 extra. ecological misfortune creates at potential crawfish anglers into the found Peabody Call (520) least one beneficial side effect — wild for a quick biology lesson on Tombstone and how he 432-7435 for crawfishing. Catching crawfish Arizona’s lake and river ecosystems different than returned to reservations. CONTRIBUTORS not only provides hours of and provides inside tips on what he was Massachusetts Leave your PETER ALESHIRE entertainment and some tasty crawfishing along with cooking accustomed to, but to found Groton credit card number and pick up RUTH BURKE eating, but also doubles as demonstrations. he wrote that he was School for Boys (now the key at the nearby OK Realty RON BUTLER a way to help save the You can also download surprised to find so many coeducational), in Frank Co., 39 Howell Ave. ROBIN CLAYTON JOSH IVANOV environment. the brochure at http://gf. educated people there. Davis Ashburn’s book Peabody of Don’t worry about tipping the JOBETH JAMISON To learn state.az.us/pdfs/i_e/Crayfish_ His congregation met in Groton: A Portrait. bellhops. CARRIE M. MINER JAMES REEL more about Brochure.pdf. LONGMIRE LINDA STOCKING; GEORGE LONGMIRE; LINDA LEFT: TOP FROM CLOCKWISE CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: NELS AKERLUND; LINDA LONGMIRE(2); GROTON SCHOOL ARCHIVES There aren’t any.

6 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 7 An ephemeral tank Arizona’s six national forests celebrate a century of protection and recreation captures a runner’s reflection near Hart Prairie Preserve in the Coconino National This Land Is Your LandForest. kate thompson A Writer Comes Back to the Smoke, the Long Views and the Howling Wind Keeping Watch Over the Mogollon Rim

BY CRAIG CHILDS

ires and cables howled in the wind. I climbed a well of metal stairs trying to get as high as possible, Plateau’s Edge up to the tiptoes of the Earth. Climbing [left] Ponderosa pines cling to the edge of the 120 feet to the top of this fire tower, I felt as Mogollon Rim, a 400- mile-long, 2,000-foot-tall if I were rising through the taut riggings of a line of limestone cliffs that defines the edge of sailing ship, the view opening straight down the Colorado Plateau. The Rim makes the Tonto beneath my feet between hatches of galvanized steel. National Forest among With each upward turn of the stairs, the land revealed the state’s most diverse, ranging from Sonoran itself in another 10 miles of view in all directions. Dark Desert at 1,400 feet to pine forests at 7,400 feet. forests lapped against a break in the geography below, a jeff snyder sharp edge running from horizon to horizon, as sudden n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1. as a sea trench plunging into an abyss. Like a one-sided Grand Canyon that cuts the Earth in half, the Mogollon The High View Rim is among the decisive landmarks in the Southwest. Here south splits [above, right] The away from north. The barren, articulated buttes of far northern Arizona Promontory fire tower have been banished, replaced thousands of feet below by rolling mountains rises above the trees on the Mogollon Rim. of pine. nick berezenko I had spent good parts of my childhood down there, exploring logging

.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 11 roads with my father, living for brief spells near the eastern The wind shrieked at the trapdoor, crying to be let in. end of the Rim at the New Mexico-Arizona border. “Yes, come in, come in,” the fire spotter said. “I’ve been There were times I believed I would never leave these watching you for a few minutes.” highlands south of the Mogollon Rim, and I walked for I looked down the trap door and could see straight to the months at a time in my early 20s through rifts and forested bottom, every turn of stairs visible. I must have appeared canyons, rarely seeing a hiking trail or a human being and ponderous, thudding up step by step. spotting 700-year-old masonry buildings on cliff crags, I shook his hand and slipped off my day pack, hardly sprouting like stone mushrooms from shadowy depths. I enough space to move inside this one-room lookout. A tall once knew the face of this landscape by its every wrinkle, fire-spotting table took up most of the floor space. Huge like November blazing with blood-red maple trees. windows offered views in every direction. Brands of local For that time in my life, I believed I had found my place had been burned into the wooden frame. I noticed in the world, my beloved country, but eventually the desert right away the man’s sitting stool, each of its legs capped called me back. with glass insulators pulled from an antique power line. here are times Watching the land grow larger as I “You get a lot of direct lightning strikes?” I asked. ascended this fire tower, I felt suddenly “There are times up here you would wet your pants,” he up here you would ashamed, faced with an old lover I had told me. not called or written in far too long. No doubt. wet your pants, ’ Coming up these steep stairs, I felt a The wind hammered at 60 mph against this tiny build- he told me. recessive fear of heights dripping into ing, straining the metal cables all the way to the ground. my blood. Bolts of wind made the tower The air was so still in here, and the building shuddering so No doubt. buck like a frightened mule. At the peak, hard, it felt as if we were ignoring some urgency, shrugging some 8,000 feet in elevation, a trapdoor our shoulders in a hurricane. Tough Flower stood open above me. I stuck my head up through The fire spotter’s Southern twang was disarming. He was [right] The golden it into a square observation room and was greeted probably in his 50s. He introduced himself as Rodney, sitting columbine is among the by a jubilant man, a South Carolinian sitting up on his stool to snap off a few comments about the dimensions most heat-resistant of the here all summer to watch the fires. of the lookout, dry fire conditions and living up here all sum- approximately 70 species of columbines. These He beckoned me up, excited for company as mer with no task other than staring across this enormity. flowers grow at Tonto I climbed the ladder into his cramped ­quarters. I envied him for his job, his view and his patience. Natural Bridge State Park, “That’s Aztec Peak, right?” I asked. “And then Four a 180-foot-high, 400-foot- long structure formed of Peaks back farther, the Mazatzals over there?” travertine near Payson. Rodney raised his eyebrows, but I was not trying nick berezenko to impress him. I needed to know. “Right?” I asked. Comeback Kids “Right,” he said. “So, you know this place?” [below] Elk have made a dramatic comeback I had never climbed up one of these Mogollon fire in Arizona in the last towers, and the view was like my whole life spread 50 years. These cows out, one of the rare pinnacles that defines an entire weigh about 500 pounds each and spend most geography. I was right up against the glass nodding, of the year in female “Yeah, I know this place.” groups until the 700- to A lightning fire was burning below the Rim, 20 1,000-pound bulls gather miles south. Its royal-blue smoke highlighted the up harems in the late summer. nick berezenko topography, shifting the shadow patterns so that I could more easily make out forms in the land. In straight sunlight, the country below looks gentle, a sweet blanket of forests — but that is deceptive. The smoke revealed long claws of canyons running side by side down to the Salt River. From this tower balanced atop this grand- stand Rim, I could see nicks and highpoints where my memory could stir up a mountain lion walking through camp at night, and then an Apache taking potshots at me with a .22 rifle as I prowled through an ancient ruin. Gap in Time Monsoon thunderheads billow up in this view Rodney kept picking up his binoculars to scope the fire. looking south from Promontory Butte on the He said it looked restless, but still a long way off. No crews edge of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests. had gone out there yet. Too remote, he said. We’ll see if it The limestone that forms the cliff face was laid on sea bottoms up to 340 million years ago. gets much bigger. Fossils in the cliffs record at least one planet- “Would smoke jumpers parachute in?” I asked. wide mass extinction. nick berezenko “That fire?” he asked himself, checking his map. “Yeah, n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1. I imagine they would. There really aren’t any good roads, and it’d take forever to get in there on foot.” When he said it, I knew the place. Days of crawling in and out of canyons, rigging up rope for a slow freefall off

arizonahighways.com See Forever Views south from Baker Butte on the Mogollon Rim can often encompass more than 100 miles of terrain. Spotters in towers with such views throughout the state pinpoint fires before they get out of control. nick berezenko

a ledge with an 80-pound pack on my back, wishing I had taken some other route. Send fire crews into that place and they might not find their way out for weeks. Some people might just end up staying, living off trout and raspberries — not the obscene grocery store raspber- ries, but tiny, faceted rubies by the hundreds. They would suddenly see an elk in heavy timber, astonished by her dark body as she moves through narrow bands of sunlight. Seeing that, they might never want to leave. The area below the Mogollon Rim is ecologically abun- he wind was up, dant, a wealth difficult to imagine from the rust-colored desert to the north — the dry mesas of Hopi, the mittened the forest as parched as 2-by-4s, buttes of Monument Valley. This is an ecotone, a place where one distinct environment meets another, a mixing and July lightning had touched ground zone where all manner of creatures mingle. without a speck of rain. To the south, I have walked through trembling heads of columbine flowers and bracken ferns, a far cry from Red flag day. the desert north of here. To the south, outcrops of rock are dappled with bear grass, agave and smooth-skinned tower he had just called, a gray steeple 6 miles distant. manzanita, an endpoint of an environmental corridor that Another stood 10 miles farther. The towers faded beyond runs in a river of plants and animals down into the almost sight, each close enough to hear a radio signal from the tropical mountains of northern Mexico. last, a fail-safe line of communication stretching from the I went back and forth from the windows to the fire-­spotting Grand Canyon to New Mexico, the Great Wall of Mogollon. tool, a circular table with a permanent map and a movable The towers peer down on the barbarian hordes of flame, sight. I asked if I could use the sight, and Rodney said by all unpredictable armies that rampage each summer with means. It was an Osborne Firefinder, a brass plate set at one flaming pine spears. end with a hairline slot cut horizontally through its center. When Rodney replaced the handset, I turned to him At the other end was a set of crosshairs, and I bent down, and said that I was glad he was here. It seemed essential aligning them with one eye. With the spotter lined up, I that sentries should perch on these needlepoints, keeping looked down at the map to check the landmarks: Black River, watch over this vast country below. Point of Pines. Places invisible to my eye were revealed. I said, “It will be an unfortunate time when these fire “Remarkable tool,” I commented. towers are all empty.” Rodney patted it and thanked me. He sat back on his stool and agreed, complaining about The radio crackled with a voice, a man in another fire the government, about technology. He told me that many tower. The voice said, “Red flag day, hold your post for 19 of the tower networks sit empty these days. Now, orbiting hours. Pass it on to Deer Springs. Over.” satellites serve as fire spotters, as if a satellite could know Rodney excused himself and picked up the handset, by the smoke what sort of forest was burning. verifying that he would keep his post. His tone turned “I don’t make enough living to hardly pay for my food,” he direct and official, alert to the gravity of his job, as if he said. “It can’t be that expensive to keep us out here.” were a sentinel standing guard between warring nations. Then, we both stared out the window, I who had so long He switched channels and then called ahead, “Red flag day loved this landscape, and Rodney, who had graciously . . . 19 hours . . . pass it on to Gentry . . . over.” The wind was taken my place on the Mogollon Rim. up, the forest as parched as 2-by-4s, and July lightning had Craig Childs, now residing in Colorado, grew up mostly in Arizona, a frequent touched ground without a speck of rain. Red flag day. resident and visitor to the Mogollon Rim Country. He is the author of numerous Another crackling voice came back, driven through a books, including most recently The Way Out: A True Story of Ruin and Survival. Hidden Jewel repeater antenna, moving the message from tower to Salome Creek runs through the 18,531-acre Salome Wilderness area in the heart of the tower across the Rim. online Tonto National Forest, 123 miles northeast I borrowed Rodney’s binoculars and focused on the Discover the wonders of Rim Country arizonahighways.com (Click on National Treasures Guide) of Phoenix. jeff snyder n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1. arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 15 COCONINO NATIONAL FOREST

Headquarters: Flagstaff Size: 1.8 million acres south of the Grand Canyon. Long Live the Claim to Fame: Part of the world’s largest contiguous ponderosa pine forest; includes Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon. Fun Fact: Early on, the Coconino had only one road, a 14-foot-wide cinder track running from Flagstaff to Williams.

Skier Bronze Black goes airborne at the Arizona After years, rangers still balance Snowbowl ski resort in the Forestsconservation100 and exploitation of Arizona’s Coconino National Forest. larry lindahl 11.2 million acres BY LEO W. BANKS Mist shreds on the tips of pines and oaks in Oak Creek Canyon. les david manevitz n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1. 16 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 17 Gifford Pinchot, the Forest Service’s first chief, faced a big problem in the summer of 1907. He’d traveled to Arizona to meet with cattlemen who wanted to know why in tarna- tion was it the federal govern- ment’s business to tell them where and how to graze cattle? These men were mad clear through, and not inclined to accommodate a wealthy tenderfoot from Yale University. In the previous 30 years, America had seen dramatic westward growth and expansion, much of it built with wood gfrom seemingly inexhaustible forests. This unrestricted exploitation gave rise to the conservation move­ment, led by Pinchot and other progressives. The movement filled a void left by states reluctant to grap- ple with such complex issues as watershed destruction and the need for irrigation sys- tems. The conservationists argued that the forests should become public property, pro- tected from unregulated, profit-driven pri- vate interests. The U.S. Congress listened, and in 1891 gave the president the power to create forest reserves, which grew to nearly 63 million acres by the time the modern-day Forest Service was created under the Department of Agriculture in 1905. Pinchot had lobbied hard to create the agency, and he found a sympathetic ear in his friend, President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. Many Arizonans supported the creation of new national forests. But other Arizo- nans who’d fought Indians and range wars to gouge out a living in a wild place sput- tered and fumed when told they suddenly needed a permit to graze cattle on land they already controlled. As Nogales cattleman Joe Wise grumbled, “Looks like every time one of the govern- ment scouts finds a tree in the West he PRESCOTT NATIONAL FOREST wires Pinchot, and Pinchot gallops into Teddy’s office and says, ‘Oh, Teddy, we Headquarters: Prescott Size: 1.25 million acres in central Arizona. Claim to Fame: Eight wilderness areas include the Granite Camp With a View Mountain Wilderness, which starts just outside Prescott. Fun Fact: Sam Miller named Lynx Creek after the lynx that The sun rises south of over attacked him on the same day in 1863 he made the gold the Verde Valley not far from a 24-site public strike that led to the founding of Prescott. campground in the cool pines at 7,500 feet in Prescott National Forest. george h.h. huey

18 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 19 . . .Very few artists with all the colors ‘ at their command can really do justice to this land. The color, the silence, the distance of it are all things which nature alone commands and man can only imitate. ‘ Hang on Snoopy Scott Rewrinkle nears found a tree in the what-the-hell mountains. “The horse went up on the top of the climbing Let’s create a new forest.” the sidewalk and mounted route “Physical Therapy” When Pinchot walked into Tucson’s part-way up the stairs of at Windy Point in the Santa Rita Hotel that summer, more than a the Opera House before I overlooking Tucson. few of the 200 cattlemen present reckoned got him turned around and Topped by 9,000-foot- he might not walk out. Instead, Pinchot’s back into the street,” remem­ tall , the Santa Catalinas are one considerable charm and unexpected grit bered Ancona. “I learned, of 12 mountain ranges won the day, according to a 1956 account though, after that because in the 1.8 million-acre in The Arizona Republic. all of my work was on . Those tensions between use and preser­ horses.” peter noebels vation ran through ensuing decades and Many other early rang- continue today. Meanwhile, Pinchot had to ers were masters of car- get the fledgling bureaucracy on its feet. pentry, woodmanship and even diplomacy. “There were no guidelines,” wrote early In fact, the Forest Service required written ranger-turned-author Paul Roberts, “for tests, which reminded some Arizona appli- no government ever had attempted such cants of something truly dreadful — school. an undertaking.” Ranger Henry Benham recalled a fellow Arizona presented a particular problem, who took the exam with him in 1906. with forest reserves totaling 7 million acres “He was just eating tobacco by the plug,” in 1905, still seven years from statehood. said Benham. “He had a big spittoon by (Today, the national forests in Arizona total him and he was busy writing and spitting, 11.2 million acres.) and writing and spitting. Everything was The new land managers, dubbed ­“Teddy’s quiet in there, not a word said, when he Pets” by skeptics, broke down into two comes to this one about fighting forest fires. categories: scientifically trained foresters Well, he couldn’t hold it any longer. seeking to build careers and Westerners “He broke out, ‘How’d you fight a top fire? who just needed a job. There’s only one way. I’d run like hell and “The resulting personnel was pictur­ pray for rain!’” esque, to put it mildly,” noted Tucson writer Rangers had to house themselves, pro- ­Bernice Cosulich.­ “It was a Mulligan stew vide their own horses and live on a start- of cow punchers, college dudes, barkeeps, ing pay of $60 a month. The agency also prospectors and timber men.” insisted that its men shed their preferred The college boys could read a book in a Levis, blue denim jackets and Stetsons in blink, but knew nothing about the West, favor of uniforms with a tight-fitting col- cattle or the horses they had to ride to cross lar mimicking those of German foresters. the nearly roadless reserves. Rangers groused endlessly and got a mea- Shortly after arriving in Flagstaff in 1913, sure of revenge in 1908 at Douglas’ Gads- CORONADO NATIONAL FOREST Ranger Edward Ancona climbed aboard a den Hotel. As strong uniform advocate rented horse to check some sheep east of Ranger Arthur Ringland strolled across the Headquarters: Tucson town. He trotted out of the livery stable lobby, a guest thinking he was a bellboy Size: 1.78 million acres in with no idea how to steer the beast. approached with an envelope. “Boy,” he southeastern Arizona; 69,000 in commanded, “mail this letter.” southwestern New Mexico. Claim to Fame: Boasts 12 “up- Working as a forest ranger, issuing graz- It’s for the Birds thrust sky-island” mountain ranges Maple trees provide a dazzling fall ing permits, overseeing tree-cutting and, towering to 10,720 feet over the backdrop in the Coronado National where necessary, fighting fires proved more surrounding Sonoran Desert. Forest’s Miller Canyon, part of the of a lifestyle than a job. Fun Fact: Early rangers found Baboquivari, Huachuca and 20,190-acre Wilderness. Ancona remembered a hot summer at A birder’s paradise, more than 170 so hard to species of birds—including 14 species Crown King, in the Prescott National Forest, pronounce they called them the of hummingbirds—populate the when getting ice cream became a commu- cough-sneeze group because that’s wilderness. gurinder p. singh nity project. what they sound like. n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1. With no way to keep food cold — except

20 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 21 APACHE-SITGREAVES NATIONAL FORESTS

Headquarters: Springerville Size: 2 million acres north of Clifton and south of Springerville. Claim to Fame: A high, wet forest, the Apache-Sitgreaves has 24 lakes and 450 miles of streams. Fun Fact: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s wolf reintroduction program has brought the howl of wolves back to Apache-Sitgreaves.

hanging it by rope in a water well — resi- dents arranged for a special shipment of ice to mix with cream from a rancher’s cows. Just as everyone in Crown King gathered for an ice cream party, a horseback messen- ger announced that a fire had been spotted. Ancona galloped off to do his duty. “I sat by that burning tree all night while my friends were eating up the only ice cream in Crown King in two years,” said Ancona. “But I put the fire out, by golly.” Most rangers looked back on their ser- vice as the time of their lives. If there were an award for literary excel- lence by a forest ranger, George Harris Collingwood would win. In 1914 and 1915, he worked at the Honeymoon ranger sta- tion on Eagle Creek in the Apache Forest. He spent much of his free time writing rich and sensitive letters to his sweetie, Jean Cummings, in Ohio. In one, he tells of the beautiful countryside. “. . .Very few artists with all the colors at their command can really do justice to this land. The color, the silence, the distance of it are all things which nature alone com- mands and man can only imitate.” Collingwood — whose son was the late TV journalist Charles Collingwood — cov- ered a range of topics with equal aplomb, from all-night ranch square dances to strange Harlan Walker, a little man “like the Gnomes of the Black Forest, who has lived out in these hills for 20 years.” But he saved his romantic prose for Jean. He described traveling to town: “On those long, lonesome trips where the trail is boggy and my horse must go slow, I amuse myself and imagine that you Lurking Trout are there beside me on another pony. We Thanks to a restoration effort, the endangered Apache trout swims hold real animated conversations, so that again in the Black River, which the range cattle turn to look a second time starts in the Apache-Sitgreaves at me and the jackrabbits peek out from National Forests and runs down behind the prickly pears to see who it is through the White Mountain Apache Reservation. The forest I’m talking with. includes the wettest areas in the “But even their eyes aren’t sharp enough state, including the headwaters of to see you. Except for your company it the Black, Little Colorado and rivers, plus 11,500-foot would’ve been a miserable trip . . .” , sacred to the Apache As time went on, (Text continued on page 26) Tribe. larry ulrich 22n SEPTEMBERTo order a print of this 2005 photograph, see page 1. arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 23 Gold Lost and Found Near where the famed Dutchman’s gold reportedly is lost, springtime visitors can find Mexican goldpoppies, shown here in Hewitt Canyon in the 160,000-acre Superstition Wilderness. The Superstitions, just east of Phoenix, are part of the Tonto National Forest, which ranges in elevation from 1,300 to 8,000 feet and draws nearly 6 million visitors a year. tom danielsen n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

24 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 25 White-knuckle Whitewater Rafters brave the rapids of the Salt River, which runs through the San Carlos and White Mountain Apache reservations and into the Tonto National Forest. The Salt River has nourished human civilizations for more than 1,000 years, and now provides a major source of water for Phoenix. larry lindahl Autumn’s Glimmer October light makes the aspens glow in the Kaibab National Forest, which includes the most pristine old-growth ponderosa pine forests in the state and borders Grand Canyon National Park. Elevations extend from 5,500 to 10,418 feet, harboring plants ranging from juniper to blue spruce. The Kaibab also is home to a flock of endangered but recently returned condors. gary ladd n To order a print of this photograph, see page 1.

TONTO NATIONAL FOREST climbed into green pickup trucks and he wrote, “I will not violate any of the regu- Headquarters: Phoenix became conservationists. lations that are enumerated in the permit. Size: More than 2.8 million acres north and east of Phoenix, up to the Mogollon Rim. In its current third phase, the Forest Ser- Thank you. It won’t be long now.” Claim to Fame: One of the most-varied and vice focuses on striking a balance between A boulder, chiseled with the inscription most-visited forests in the United States. producing forest products and protecting “Mack’s Rest,” today sits atop a hill, visible Fun Fact: The setting for dentist-turned- wildlife, habitat and outdoor recreation. from State Route 87, about 3 miles south of author Zane Grey’s 1926 novel, Under the Tonto Rim. But even now, the Forest Service relies on Sunflower. the connection between the land and the com­ The forest Gifford Pinchot spent a career ­munities that distinguished people like Fred protecting still gathers around McCord, Winn, former longtime supervisor at south- just as Pinchot­ a century ago hoped it always (Continued from page 23) significant improve­ east Arizona’s Coronado National Forest. would. ments to the forests took shape. In addition to building recreation areas During the Depression, men of the Civil- around Tucson, including in Sabino Can- Additional Reading: Hoof Prints on the Range ian Conservation Corps built waterlines yon, he made it part of his public service to (1957) and Them Were the Days (1965) by and bridges, fenced stream bottoms and put markers on graves of pioneers killed by Paul Roberts, and Men Who Matched the constructed small dams. Indians in the Chiricahua Mountains. Mountains (1972), by Edwin A. Tucker and One of those who worked in Arizona and By the time Winn retired in 1942 after George Fitzpatrick. The Forest History Soci- New Mexico was the renowned conserva- 34 years, he’d become part of the blood and ety’s Web address is www.foresthistory.org. tionist Aldo Leopold. Between 1915 and bone of Arizona. 1923, he served in a number of Arizona jobs, So had F. Lee Kirby, supervisor of the Tucson-based Leo W. Banks says he consistently finds the simple treasures of calm, quiet and beauty in including helping lay out summer home Tonto National Forest. In 1935, he received the forests of Arizona. sites in Pine Flats and Oak Creek Canyon. a letter from retired railroad worker Uncle Initially, the Forest Service focused on Mack McCord, asking for an eighth of an KAIBAB NATIONAL FOREST protecting the forests from timber thieves acre in the Tonto for his final resting place.

and fires, which the Duke University-based In his 20 years of service, Kirby had Headquarters: Williams. Forest History Society calls the custodial dealt with many of the rugged old-timers Size: 1.6 million acres. era from 1905 to 1942. whose sweat and tears had shepherded Claim to Fame: The Grand Canyon In the second era, 1942 to 1969, the empha- Arizona to statehood, and he could hardly splits the Kaibab’s northern and sis shifted to supplying the public with say no. Today, however, the Forest Service southern sections. Fun Fact: The Havasupai Indians consider natural resources and giving post-World no longer authorizes headstones or graves. Red Butte, just south of Tusayan, the War II families a place to hike, fish and play. When Uncle Mack got the good news, he navel of the Earth. Rangers who formerly rode horses now scribbled a note back: “After I locate there,”

online Plan a trip to Arizona’s national forests, parks and monuments at arizonahighways.com (Click on National Treasures Guide)

26 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 27 Coconino National Forest near Sedona. dugald bremner Oak Creek Canyon, Coconino National Forest.­ dugald bremner

place or to spend your precious angling Cosmic Ray, whose Fat Tire Tales and suppose they’re people-watching? through the plateau’s four forest for a wealth of wildlife watching. lower Salt River is ideal for navigating time guessing where to go. Take a Trails is one of the state’s bestselling Information: (520) 364-3468; layers with longtime area guide Jeff To spy nature by night, take the subtle rapids in a raft or kayak and customized fly-fishing tour with expert guidebooks. Whether you’re hankering www.sabo.org. Allen. Arrange pack trips lasting hours dusk-departing Starlight Train. If for spying wildlife along the way, instructors and area guides through for a smooth sailing “Betty” ride or or days for parties of three or more. human nature is more your interest, such as great blue herons, radiant red- Scale the Cochise Stronghold 12 Unique Family Adventures the lesser-known waters of the White a high-flying, over-the-handlebar Information: (928) 638-2389; www. imbibe in a romantic wine-tasting tour winged blackbirds and wild horses. It seems a fitting tribute that the Mountains. Information: Troutback Fly “shred,” the Sedona area is a veritable kaibablodge.com. on the Grape Train Escape. With its proximity to city sprawl, the Arizona’s forests contain some of the best trails and scenic spots in place where the Chiricahua Apache Fishing Guide Service, toll-free (800) vortex of “primo” rated red rock Information: Toll-free, (800) 320- Salt is easily accessible but remote the world, but these wooded wonderlands cry out for more than just Chief Cochise spent many years Helicopter the Grand Canyon 903-4092; www.troutback.com. trails. Be sure to save some of your 0718; www.verdecanyonrr.com. enough to make you feel like you’ve successfully defying the military is the Gravity, schmavity. Why walk when walking and gawking. Here are 12 ways to turn your national forest breath for the views. (Cosmic Ray’s escaped the rat race, if only for a few same place where people now go to you can fly? Tower over the treetops of Pan for Gold at Lynx Creek experience into a bona fide adventure. To check on possible fire brazen, but top-rated Fat Tire book hours. Guided trips make the perfect COCONINO NATIONAL FOREST defy mortality. A favorite spot for rock the Kaibab National Forest and get the You don’t need a burro, a white can be found in Arizona bookstores half-day getaway for any local or danger, call your destination forest listed below. By JoBeth Jamison climbers, these granite domes and ultimate glimpse of the Grand Canyon beard or a red bandanna to be an Surf a Volcano and online. Ray recommends the area visitor over age 4. Information: boulders in the as you hover, swoop and soar through Arizona prospector, just a pan, a The snow-capped moderately challenging Submarine pickax and maybe a metal detector. Desert Voyagers, (480) 998-RAFT Nineteen holes in a lush, alpine setting are chock-full of smooth faces and its nooks and narrows in a state-of- APACHE-SITGREAVES NATIONAL FORESTS reach heights of 12,633 feet, but that Loop). Information: (928) 527-3600; (7238); www.desertvoyagers.com. vertical hiding places, as Cochise aptly the-art helicopter. Sound risky? Only The Prescott National Forest actually 12 all for the price of a piece of plastic? doesn’t mean you can’t ‘Hang Ten’ on www.mtbr.com. Tee-off in the Timbers demonstrated. Information: (520) 364- if you eat lunch before the flight. recognizes panning for gold as a Drive the Apache Trail Priceless. Information: (928) 368-6700; this extinct volcano almost year-round. What golf course actually encourages 3468; www.fs.fed.us/r3/coronado/ Information: Papillon Grand Canyon legitimate recreational activity at This designated National Scenic Byway www.wmonline.com/discgolf/. From December to March, catch CORONADO NATIONAL FOREST you to aim for the trees? The Wood forest/recreation/rock_climbing/rocks. Helicopters, toll-free, (800) 528-2418; the Lynx Creek Mineral Withdrawal (also known as State Route 88) and the the frozen waves of winter weather Land Disc Golf Course in Pinetop- Take a Fly-fishing Tour Bird the Sky Islands shtml; www.rockclimbing.com/routes/ www.papillon.com. Area. Just remember who told you surrounding area is not only pretty, it by board, by ski, by shoe or by sled. Lakeside does. Disc golf is like regular This is for those of you who have ever Think of the Coronado National Forest listArea.php?AreaID=400. about it if you happen to strike it is a Pandora’s box of mystery, history From May to October, drop those golf, only the “ball” is a Frisbee, the read the fishing reports and gone, as Club Med for our fine-feathered rich. Information: (928) 443-8000; and folklore. Making the approximately toes off Arizona Snowbowl’s Scenic PRESCOTT NATIONAL FOREST “club” is your body and the “hole” is an giddy with anticipation, to a distant friends. Sky islands, where mountains www.fs.fed.us/r3/prescott/recreation/ 37-mile trip from Apache Junction to Skyride as you glide up the face of elevated basket. This environmentally hooking hotspot only to get there and rise above the hot lowland deserts, KAIBAB NATIONAL FOREST Train With the Eagles propect.shtml. Theodore Roosevelt Dam gives you an for views so vast, friendly sport is becoming wildly find that everyone else in the state has provide remarkably diverse ecosystems Giddyap and Get Along Sorry football fans, we mean an opportunity to search for lost gold; sit you’ll think you can see the ocean. popular and with good reason. It can done exactly the same. The Apache- filled with flora and fauna not found to the North Rim actual train and actual birds. The TONTO NATIONAL FOREST on a saddle-shaped barstool; stop and Information: (928) 779-1951; be as casual or as competitive Sitgreaves National Forests is home to together anywhere else in the state. Take in the fall foliage, savor the locomotives of the Verde Canyon Paddle the Salt smell desert wildflowers; see Salado www.arizonasnowbowl.com. as you want to make it, it’s open more than 450 miles of streams and Cave Creek in the Chiricahuas is one sweeping views and dodge deer on the Railroad are the only motorized mode No man-made resort moat can cliff dwellings or what once was the to all disc-flinging ages and it can almost 2,000 surface acres of cold- Ride the Red Rocks of many ecological sweet spots in high, cool drive to the Grand Canyon’s of transportation allowed passage compare with the stunning beauty of world’s highest masonry dam; and soak make for an exceptionally fun time water lakes, perfect for casting and You don’t have to haul your mountain the area. It’s also where some of the North Rim. Once you’ve recovered through Verde Canyon, where bald the as seen in a series of man-made lakes — all in in the pines. Best of all, you get to catching everything from arctic grayling bike to Moab for curvaceous slick most rare and beautiful bird species your wits from getting slapped by the eagles are known to nest and soar. from the river. Flowing through the one (very busy) day. Information: (480) use your arms and legs to play to brook and rainbow trout. There’s rock “carving.” Take it from Arizona’s congregate throughout the seasons view, you can get the Kaibab Lodge to The four-hour journey between southwestern portion of the Tonto 610-3300; www.arizonahandbook.com/ the sport, not pay for the sport. no need to pick one, overpopulated legendary mountain-biking lead man, for a little southeastern R&R. Do you organize custom horseback adventures Clarkdale and Perkinsville allows National Forest, the dam-controlled apache.htm.

Bob Kerry climbs an uncommon ice flow in the Santa Catalina Mountains in the Coronado National Forest. peter noebels

Woods Canyon Lake, Apache- Sitgreaves National Forests. nick berezenko Clear Creek, Coconino National Forest. San Francisco Peaks, peter noebels Coconino National Forest. dugald bremner Tough and Courageous as His Famous Siblings, He’s the Only One Buried in Arizona By Kathleen Walker

he old graveyard southeast of Railroad Avenue 1881 saga of the Earp brothers, including My Darling in Willcox looks the part— desolate, flat and Clementine (1946), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Tdusty. A few crosses, headstones and pieces of and Tombstone (1993). In these movies, Wyatt stars wood mark final resting places. Adding to the sense with Virgil and Morgan in supporting roles, and James of being lost and forlorn in the days of gunfights and is mentioned. But not a word about Warren. He does cattle rustling, freight trains rumble through the town show up in Wyatt Earp (1994), appearing in the open- with the melancholy sounds of life heading for some- ing as the baby brother. He reappears after the gunfight where else. Ah, well, people like Warren Baxter Earp seeking revenge for Morgan’s murder and again in seem destined to end up in a place like this. a scene of someone who may or may not have been Catch the name? Earp, as in Wyatt and Morgan him riding the last horse out of a canyon. So much and Virgil, the fraternal triad who marched down for Warren. Warren Earp in his mid-30s the streets of Tombstone. Brother James also lived in “Unappreciated,” says Michael M. Hickey, author of in an 1890s photograph. The New York Herald eulogized Tombstone in those days of the O.K. Corral. And then The Death of Warren Baxter Earp: A Closer Look. He his death with the headline: there was Warren, the youngest of the five sons born describes Wyatt as “showbiz,” gives Virgil credit for “Wicked Warren, Youngest and Most Foolhardy of This to Nicholas and Virginia Earp. Warren, too, played a his courage, sees James as “likeable” and Morgan as Notorious Family of Stage role in the Tombstone saga, but you wouldn’t know “devil may care.” Robbing Desperadoes, Meets that by Hollywood. “And then,” he says, “into this mix comes Warren.” His Fate in an Arizona Saloon— Followed the Tragic Footsteps Wyatt first captured the attention of the newspa- Warren came into this life in Pella, Iowa, in 1855, of Two Brothers.” pers before his death in 1929, but Hollywood made the baby of the family. Brothers James and Virgil

ARIZONA HISTORICAL SOCIETY HISTORICAL ARIZONA him a lasting legend. Many movies have dealt with the fought for the North in the Civil War. In the 1870s,

30 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 31 Virgil, Morgan and Wyatt took up gam- and got involved in a stabbing in 1893, but and passed through Warren’s heart in bling and policing, with James never too he drew only a brief arrest, a fine and a a downward trajectory. That makes for far away. Meanwhile, their parents moved couple inches of print. interesting shooting, as John Boyett stood from the Midwest to California, finally set- However, a fight with a Professor no taller than 5 feet 6 inches. Some note Things to Do Around Tombstone tling near San Bernardino, California. Behrens on a bridge in Yuma in November that to get off a downward shot into the and Willcox By JoBeth Jamison A photograph of Warren taken in the 1893 earned Warren more attention. By 6-foot-tall Earp, Boyett must have been 1890s captures the good looks of the Earp newspaper accounts, Earp “seized the standing over him, on a chair or hanging boys, with a touch of sensitivity around the professor by the neck and endeavored to from a chandelier. TOMBSTONE mouth behind the mask of his moustache. throw him off the bridge.” The professor Reportedly, Virgil and Wyatt showed up Located approximately 71 miles southeast of Tucson. From Tucson, Warren also had the height of the Earps, 6 hung on for dear life. An interesting period in Willcox with their own questions about take Interstate 10 southeast to feet. That height would figure in the contro- of negotiation followed. their brother’s death. At the time, Virgil State Route 80. Follow SR 80 22 versy surrounding his death 20 years later Earp demanded $100, but said he’d settle lived in Prescott, Arizona, and Wyatt in miles south to Tombstone. in a Willcox saloon. for $50. The professor, apparently very good Nome, Alaska. Could they have made the Hickey claims the man had another mark at this, offered Earp $25 to be picked up at trip? Some say yes. Speculation continues A real “hole-in-the-wall.” There are of the Earps. “No question as to (his) cour- the professor’s home. The professor went on whether they took their questions and reportedly 140 bullet holes in the age,” he states. He cites as proof, “The way home and waited there with the police for their vengeance to their brother’s killer. walls of this fully restored theater- he stood up with his brothers and took the Warren’s arrival. John Boyett disappeared from Arizona turned-museum where the Earps, place of Morgan.” The incidents raise questions about within months of the shooting, but in 1996 Doc Holliday and other Tombstone As correctly depicted in the movie Wyatt Warren’s brainpower or his blood-alcohol an investigator found his grave in a fam- toughs were able to enjoy a variety …as usual of vices, 24 hours a day. (520) Earp, Warren joined his brothers in Tomb- level, as he was well known as a drinker ily plot in Comal County, Texas. The stone 457-3421; www.tombstone.org. the wrong man stone shortly after the October 26, 1881, and a bartender. In this case, a jurisdiction indicated his date of death as 1919. How- gunfight. On December 28, an ambush left question may have saved Warren from a ever, discrepancies in the date of birth and C.S. FLY’S GALLERY Virgil with a crippled left arm. The mur- long, dry stretch in prison. The assault on the death certificate raised more questions. Doc Holliday, who lived in C.S. Fly’s was shot.’ der of Morgan came in March 1882, shot in the professor took place on a bridge crossing If Boyett rests in that grave, when did he boardinghouse, was known for a the back while playing billiards the Colorado River. Where then did the get there? famous shooting, and so was Fly. See his renowned 1886 photographs of with Wyatt. Warren joined with crime actually occur, California or Arizona? Questions also swirl around Warren Apache warrior and other Wyatt, Doc Holliday and a small Warren offered to take the problem out of Earp’s grave back in Willcox. images that captured the Old West band of men to hunt down the killers. town on the next train. They buried Warren in an unmarked in this gallery located in the O.K. Hickey figures the avengers killed at In an inky goodbye wave, the local paper grave the day he died. Decades later, a Corral complex. (520) 457-3456. least seven men before they slipped away. concluded, “No man has left Yuma for years wooden marker went up, but not neces- HELLDORADO TOWN Holliday died in Colorado of tuberculosis in that was more pleased to get away.” sarily on or near the original burial site. In this Tombstone theme park, Old 1887. Wyatt began a long life of travels with Warren made his final stop in the cow In 2002, locals dedicated a massive metal West gun battles, including those his ladylove, the actress Josephine Sarah town of Willcox. The railroad gave the town marker and slab on a different site — still not of the Earps and their enemies, Marcus. Warren, before going home to an economic boost in 1881 and provided necessarily the right one. are continually re-enacted. (520) Controversy still swirls around the Earp brothers, California, enjoyed a moment of notoriety. the ranchers with easy access to the beef Since 2000, Willcox has served as a 457-9035; www.helldoradotown.com. including whether this metal grave marker denotes Warren’s actual burial plot. dave bly In 1882, the Gunnison News-Democrat of markets of the East and West. Tens of thou- place for writers of Western history and O.K. CORRAL Gunnison, Colorado, published an inter- sands of head shipped out of Willcox every lore to exchange facts and opinions on The Earps and Doc Holliday ended their WILLCOX view with him. Referring to him as “Tiger,” year. Cow-town problems prevailed—rus- such topics as gunfights and graves. In that time in Tombstone six months after Located about 82 miles east of the reporter wrote the blue-eyed young man tling, robberies and murders. Folks didn’t year, Hickey, a resident of Hawaii, joined ending the lives of and the Tucson. From Tucson, take Interstate didn’t look much like a fighter, but added, necessarily like the Earps and the uptight Willcox civic supporters in inaugurating McLaury brothers near this famed spot. 10 east 82 miles to Willcox. (520) 457-3456; www.ok-corral.com. “He’s a holy terror when he gets started.” Not law and order they represented. the first annual Warren Earp Days. The HISTORIC RAILROAD AVENUE exactly the best press you could hope for, Still, Warren found work in Willcox as a town continues to hold the annual event TOMBSTONE EPITAPH MUSEUM While you can’t walk a mile in Warren but the best Warren would get for the rest driver, a bartender and a range with historic re-enactments, quick-draw The Earps’ most memorable moments Earp’s shoes, you’re apt to follow his of his life. detective keeping an eye and an ear on the contests, book signings and other public were recorded, written and printed by footsteps if you wander down this historic Oh, he did make a name for himself. In business of rustling. activities. this Old West newspaper. Originally street. The former Headquarters Saloon, 1883, the Santa Barbara Daily Press wrote “I think he went back to just make some- Not everyone in southern Arizona cele- located across from the O.K. Corral, once located on the corner of Railroad the operation relocated to this Avenue and Maley Street, is where Earp of his involvement in a shooting in Colton, thing of himself,” author Hickey says. brates. People there have long memories. To building (now a museum) in 1927. took his last drink and his last breath. California, and commented, “…as usual Instead, Warren got himself shot dead some, Warren earns no more than a label of (520) 457-2211; www.tombstone.org. the wrong man was shot.” The story earned on July 6, 1900, at the Headquarters Saloon “scoundrel,” “no-account” or “bum.” Others, THE OLD WILLCOX CEMETERY TOMBSTONE COURTHOUSE Here lies Warren, the only Earp Earp a description in the New Mexico Silver at the corner of Railroad Avenue and Maley like Kathy Klump, president of Willcox’s STATE HISTORIC PARK buried in Arizona. Third Avenue ends City Enterprise as “the most quarrelsome of Street. Sulphur Springs Valley Historical Society, Outvoted by Bisbee in 1929, Tombstone lost at the old Willcox Cemetery, where the Cochise County seat. This former 1882 the Earp brothers.” Witnesses said John Boyett, a local ranch accepts his legacy. As she points out, “He’s the recently erected Warren Earp Cochise County Courthouse was restored In 1884, Warren got into a messy alterca- foreman, did the shooting. According to the only Earp buried in Arizona.” memorial is located, very noticeably, in the late 1950s and has since been a tion involving a waiter and a pickle bottle testimony, the unarmed Earp kept walking Not much to say about a man’s claim in the back, and his remains, not so state park. (520) 457-3311; www.pr.state. in a French restaurant in San Bernardino. toward Boyett in a taunting way and told to fame, perhaps, but down in that little noticeably, somewhere underneath. az.us/Parks/parkhtml/tombstone.html. “Warren Earp has been getting into trouble him to get his guns. Boyett went out and graveyard across the tracks, with that new For more information: Willcox Chamber again,” reported the San Bernardino Index. got some guns and, sure enough, shot him. marker, Warren Baxter Earp finally stands For more information: Tombstone of Commerce, toll-free (800) 200- Chamber of Commerce, (888) 457-3929; The Arizona Daily Star carried the story and While Boyett held the smoking gun, a judge heads and shoulders above the rest. 2272; www.willcoxchamber.com. described Earp as “well remembered in Ari- found no reason to have him tried. www.tombstone.org. zona for his daring acts of lawlessness.” The medical examination showed that Kathleen Walker of Tucson has returned many times

He shot off a bartender’s thumb in 1885 the fatal bullet entered below the collarbone CENTER NATIONAL AUTRY WEST COLLECTION, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF THE to Willcox for stories of Arizona.

32 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 33 FEEDER FRENZY Lesser long-nosed bats play a key role in the survival of large cacti and agaves, which they pollinate at night. The bats winter in the Mexican tropics but journey to Arizona with the summer cactus bloom—although early arrivers may also get a quick fix from

CHARLES S. RAU CHARLES hummingbird feeders.

Nectar-loving species share the feeding trough with hummingbirds BY CHARLES S. RAU

t’s a mystery,” said the bird-lover exam- special­ized tongues, the bats are liberally dusted ining his hummingbird feeders in Portal, with pollen. They then inadvertently spread located in the Chiricahua Mountains in that pollen to the next flower they visit. southeast Arizona. “During the summer, every Some giant cacti and agaves depend heavily feeder I have tried leaked, evaporated or some- on bats for pollination. Unfortunately, a decline thing overnight so that by morning they were in these flower-loving bats could reduce repro- all empty. Have you ever seen hummingbirds duction of agaves and large cacti, which would come to feeders at night?” disrupt the Sonoran Desert ecosystem. The quizzical look he gave me called for an After periods of feeding, bats congregate in explanation. temporary roosts to rest and lick the pollen “Not the feathered kind,” I replied.“Bats are from each other’s bodies. The pollen provides probably emptying your feeders,” a vital source of protein, although they will eat “Bats!” he exclaimed. “I thought bats only occasional insects. The bats also feed on the eat insects.” ripening fruit of the saguaros and organ pipe I explained that 70 percent of the world’s cacti and thus help disperse their seeds. nearly 1,000 species of bats do feed on insects These bats also have discovered another and other arthropods, but one specialized source of nectar. During nights from mid-April group feeds on the nectar and pollen from the through September, they often sip the sugarwa- flowers of certain plants. ter from back yard hummingbird feeders. Some Bats Of the 42 species of bats found in the United A single bat can slurp up an ounce a night. States, three such nectar-feeding species flutter With this figure, we might estimate local bat along the Mexican border in southern Texas, numbers. At one location in the Huachuca New Mexico and Arizona. These bats migrate Mountains, approximately 435 bats have vis- Have a into the United States from fall and winter sites, ited feeders and in one back yard in Portal, 375 primarily in Mexico, starting in late April and in a single night. early May. Nectar bats seem to have better manners The Mexican long-tongued bat and the lesser than most hummingbirds, sharing the feeders long-nosed bat are the only two nectar bats without chasing each other off. Hummers, by ‘Sweet found in Arizona. They inhabit deep desert contrast, will stake a claim to a feeder and ward canyons and areas of desert scrub. They emerge off all others. from their daytime roosts in caves and aban- During the bats’ return migration south to doned mines in the early evening to forage on Mexico, hum­mingbird feeders may provide Tooth’ the blossoms of saguaros, organ pipes, other an important food source. Bat populations large cacti and several types of agaves. appear to be highly variable due to changes Some scientists have suggested that the in habitat and natural food sources. The lesser organ pipes, saguaros and century plant aga- long-nosed bat is considered endangered in the ves may have coevolved a kind of partnership United States. CACTUS LOVER with nectar-feeding bats through blooming So, if you live in the Southwest and have A Mexican long-tongued bat with a 14-inch wingspan sips nectar strategies and flowers that accommodate the been puzzled about the overnight loss of sug- from an agave flower with a long, bristlelike tongue. The migratory bats. For instance, their flowers fully open at arwater in your hummingbird feeders, you’ve bats are most often found at 4,000-6,000 feet where they nest in night to produce pollen, nectar and scents that probably got bats in your . . . backyard. caves and provide essential pollination for many cactus species. attract the bats. Charles S. Rau is a biologist and nature photographer Although they range from the tropics to the American Southwest, While briefly hovering or landing on the and, when not leading natural history trips in southern they’re listed as a Federal Species of Concern as a result of loss of flowers to lap up the nectar with their long, Arizona and Mexico’s Copper Canyon, he resides near Portal. nesting caves and human-caused changes in their habitat. online To learn about more Arizona critters, go to

INTERNATIONAL CONSERVATION BAT arizonahighways.com (Click on Plants and Animals) ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 35 RETURN To Modern artists, o like the elders, H PI come home to find their land creative centers

fter Lawrence Namoki returned from his 13-month stint in the jungles of Vietnam, he started making traditional Hopi pots on the high, dry mesas where people have resided continuously longer than any other place in North America. After Hopi carver Ed Seechoma resolved to “escape Maasaw greeted their ancestors and told the madness” of big city living, he came back to the them they would leave their footprints in mesas to carve cottonwood roots by lamplight and many places before reuniting at the center fret about the ravens loose in cornfields at the foot of the universe. So they left footprints in the of the mesa. form of ruins, rock art and potsherds, before the Hopi artists like Seechoma and Namoki have cre- clans gathered again at the three Hopi mesas. ative, spiritual and cultural taproots that go all the Here they developed an aesthetic, cooperative way down to ancient cultures that left rock art and culture that survived on less than 10 inches of painted pots. Like many Hopi artists, they traveled a annual rain. Each clan contributed ceremonies and great circle to come back to the place of their birth, in married into other clans, creating community ties to that journey understanding certain essential things become Hopisinom. with an even deeper perspective. Now, they work They have held to their traditions through traumas diligently in their studios in the old villages, where and challenges, including the arrival of the Spanish guides take visitors on tours of time and ­artistry. in 1540, a regional rebellion in 1680 and the Spanish Their personal journeys echo the mythic journey reconquest in 1693. Over the centuries, Hopi terri- of the Hopi people themselves, whose traditions say tory shrank from an estimated 18 million acres to an they emerged into this harsh desert, traveled the island of 1.5 million acres, surrounded by the larger world seeking an easier place and came back finally Nation. to their beginnings when they realized that only the Like their ancestors, many Hopi artists have circled desert could protect their spirits. outward before returning to the center place with a Hopi traditions refer to these ancestors as the Hisat­ wider perspective, inspired techniques and a deeper sinom, identified by archaeologists as Anasazi, Mogol­ appreciation for their own traditions. lon or Sinagua. The say that the Earth god Visitors to the Hopi mesas can meet artists, visit a story to tell A pot created by First Mesa’s Garrett Maho features the time-honored themes of a storyteller and Mother Text by Kathleen Bryant Photographs by Larry Lindahl Earth in graphic representation. studios and glimpse the deep connection between culture and traditional kachina dolls at Day’s urging. Now, the store is a major creativity each autumn during the Tuhisma arts festival. The outlet for the old-style dolls, and carvers stop by frequently. the stone walls. Seechoma’s uncle and father taught him to carve official Cultural Center on Second Mesa with its motel, camp- Many artists sell from their homes, posting signs in windows. in the contemporary style, but after escaping the “madness” in ground, museum and a restaurant that serves traditional foods Though visitors are welcome to respond to such invitations, wan- the outside world, he brings the passion of a convert to “taking it makes a good first stop. In addition, the Tsakurshovi trading post dering from public areas is discouraged. Every village has off-limits back” — returning carving to a simpler time. has become an unofficial cultural center, where locals shop for locations, including kivas and shrines. However, visitors may travel Another Hotevilla carver, Philbert Honanie, also prefers tradi- cottonwood root and herbs alongside visitors buying postcards freely along main highways, near the Cultural Center and to galler- tional dolls, saying they appear more like spirit beings than danc- and pottery. There, trader Joseph Day and his wife, Janice (née ies or other businesses throughout the mesas. ers. He sought inspiration from the Hopi dolls missionary Henry Quotskuyva), offer jokes, the “tourist tip of the week” and “Don’t Those who wish to explore further can hire a Hopi guide, like Voth collected more than a century ago. As a child, Honanie lived Worry Be Hopi” T-shirts. Gary Tso, who calls his guide business the Left-Handed Hunter. in Iowa before moving in with his grandmother on Second Mesa. Their most-tenured employee, Wallace Hyeoma, whom Day calls Tso spent his early childhood with Navajo grandparents before He credits Hopi elders for teaching him about carving and culture, “the Howard Stern of Hopi radio,” arrives after hosting an early moving to the mesas to live with his mother, a schoolteacher. Later, often on days when he ditched school to spend time in the kiva. morning show on KUYI 88.1 FM. Hyeoma, a carver, began ­making he attended The Orme School and joined the U.S. Marine Corps. That constant struggle to incorporate new ideas without losing the old ones runs through the lives of Hopi artists — as it runs through the history of their people. For instance, 4 miles southeast their personal journeys echo of Hotevilla lies the Third Mesa village of Oraibi, perhaps the old- the mythic journey of the Hopi people. est continuously inhabited village in North America. The popula- tion of 3,000 has dwindled to 300, and many homes have stood empty since the “push war” at the turn of the century after the U.S.

His tours are peppered with astute observations of all three government tried to break up Hopi farms and send children to a cultures — Anglo, Navajo and Hopi. boarding school in Keams Canyon to learn Anglo ways. The people A full-day tour may stretch from the base of First Mesa all of Oraibi were bitterly divided by the government’s demands and the way west to a canyon Tso calls Dawaki (the “place of the in September 1906, the warring factions settled the matter with sun.”) The ancestors incised spirals, flute players and animals a contest that involved pushing one another over a line drawn in on Dawaki’s cliffs. Such places and symbols have influenced the earth. The people who opposed the changes lost and so left the work of many modern Hopi artists. the village. For instance, the rock markings at Dawaki find their way At Oraibi, history spreads before your feet, from potsherds and into the work of Duane Tawahongva, a smith who works in mano fragments to scraps of plastic toys. Looking over the mesa’s silver, gold and semiprecious stones. His Three Generations edge to the ruins of Voth’s Mennonite church, Tso recalls remnants essence of spirit design depicts a petroglyph family. His home and studio sits Rooted firmly in ancient tradition, of an older Spanish mission. After its destruction, the mission’s along a curved gravel road at the edge of Second Mesa, where Third Mesa’s Philbert Honanie fashions decorated ceiling beams ended up in a kiva at Oraibi. Later, the he keeps his prized 1960 pickup parked outside. Morning sun kachinas that he feels convey the essence Hopis rebuilt the kiva and discarded the church beams, which the of Hopi spirit beings better than more peeks through window blinds, illuminating Tawahongva’s fanciful contemporary creations. children used as a seesaw until a collector carted them away. workbench as he cuts an intricate design into a sheet of silver And so the wheel turns, even here at the center of the universe. with a jeweler’s saw. Nearby, finished earrings as tiny as a As Hopi artists continue to enter the jungles and the madness of the keeping the traditions child’s fingernails and hefty belt buckles his service in Vietnam. “It smells like money, the old folks say,” he world, they return and rediscover old truths as perfectly balanced [clockwise from left] Eagle Dancer Wilmer Lomayaoma Jr. gleam against black velvet. jokes, as he lights the beehive of sheep dung chips that surround as clay spun on a potter’s wheel. entertains audiences at the Hopi Festival of Arts and Culture held Tso patiently waits outdoors, carv- his pots. Namoki combines traditional myths and symbolism with at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. Working in a complicated overlay style, ing a kachina doll in the shade of his a contemporary flair. He often employs sgraffito (a specialized type Kathleen Bryant of Sedona says words cannot express how profoundly Hopi Duane Tawahongva crafts SUV while Tawahongva demonstrates, of carving) and uses vivid mineral pigments like chrysacola. culture unites nature, spiritual beliefs and art. She is grateful to the Hopi people one of his intricate silver step by step, the silver overlay process. Namoki’s studio in the First Mesa village of Sitsomovi has enter- who opened their homes and studios and talked about their lives and work. designs. According to potter Upon entering the Hopi work spaces, Larry Lindahl felt the inspired energy Maho, a modern kiln “kills By the time Tawahongva completes a tained royalty, and his pots are included in such notable collections that animated each artist’s creativity while making jewelry, carvings or pottery. the spirit” of a pot. Here, he bighorn sheep pendant, Tso has accu- as the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American He lives in Sedona. prepares sheep dung for a mulated a pile of wood shavings and Indian. He often works with KUYI’s eclectic mix of world beat, jazz traditional Hopi clay firing. roughed out a hunter kachina. and Hopi music playing in the background. Location: The Hopi Indian Reservation is En route to First Mesa, Tso points out Close to Namoki’s studio is Ponsi Hall, the starting point for a about 260 miles northeast of Phoenix. the site of the mesas’ original village and continues his account tour of the ancient village of Walpi, where visitors may meet art- Getting There: From Phoenix, drive north of Hopi history. Ever since the famed First Mesa potter Nampeyo ists like carver Roy Dawangumptewa, who hikes up the cliffs from approximately 140 miles on Interstate 17. Turn right revived ancient Sityatki Polychrome designs in the late 1800s, First the below-mesa village of Polacca to spend afternoons carving (east) onto Interstate 40 and travel 62 miles. Turn left (northeast) onto State Route 87 and travel 59 miles to the reservation. Mesa has been known for pottery. near the Gap, the narrow stone fin that links Walpi to other First Weather: Chilly in winter, summer highs average Award-winning First Mesa potter Garrett Maho, 29, learned Mesa villages. Dawangumptewa carves sculpture dolls, free-form 87 degrees. Fall is the primary tourist season. the potter’s art from his grandmother. Maho still uses the Sityatki figures that take the natural shape of a cottonwood root, as well as Lodging/Dining: The Cultural Center on Second Mesa has an inn designs she taught him, though today he mostly makes large, wide- contemporary dolls, with realistic feathers and fringe carved from and restaurant. Reservations recommended. Camping nearby. shouldered jars and winsome rabbit-shaped pots in honor of his the wood itself. Attractions: Galleries dot the mesas, and many artists sell from their homes. Guided walking tours of the First Rabbit Clan. Other carvers, like Seechoma, concentrate on more traditional Mesa village of Walpi are offered daily at Ponsi Hall. Maho is a traditionalist from start to finish, smudging the clay to styles to create simple figures with natural pigments adorned with Visitor Etiquette: Observe the rules established purify it before beginning his work, painting with a yucca brush and feathers. He lives in Third Mesa’s Hotevilla, founded in the early by each village. Photography, recording and sketching are natural pigments, and firing with sheep dung. Maho says kiln firing 1900s by the “Hostiles” who vigorously resisted U.S. government prohibited. It is considered a privilege to be a guest at a ceremony, and good behavior is important to the outcome of “kills the spirit” of the pot. The sharp but pleasant odor of burning interference. Seechoma’s studio has no electricity, so he works by the ceremony. Behave as though you are in church. sheep dung often scents the morning breezes near First Mesa. the light of a lantern hanging from the wood-beamed ceiling or Additional Information: Office of Cultural Preservation, That’s just fine with Lawrence Namoki, home all these years after the sunlight that pours through the windows to cast shadows on (928) 734-3613.

38 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 39 {along the way} by William Childress | illustration by Joseph Daniel Fiedler

Arizona Cotton Pickin’ in the ’40s Taught Some Tough Life Lessons

n 1948, my oklahoma sharecropper Dad “Be darned,” Dad said, as calm as if he was in said to Mom, “Well, Hon, I reckon our best church. “Look at that.” The trailer had broken Ibet this year is Arizona, down around Casa its axle. We searched the hot desert for half an Grande and Eloy. They’ve had a good ­cotton hour, but never found the wheel. Before Dad crop, and there sure ain’t much around here.” died in 1997, age 81, he recalled the incident. “Pickin’ or pullin’?” Mom wanted to know. “Darned if I ever figured it out,” he said. “Mostly pickin’, some pullin’.” “There wasn’t even much sagebrush. We shoulda “Pickin’ ain’t my favorite, but it pays more.” found it easy.” “Seventy-five cents a hundred,” Dad said. “The We packed all we could in the back of the three of us could make five dollars a day.” pickup, abandoned the trailer and drove on. Picking — removing the Two days later, we were hired in Casa Grande. cotton from its boll — was Bolls, bolls, bolls. An ocean of white-speckled slower and more labor- green or green-speckled white, take your pick. intensive. Pulling meant we Arizona in September, when cotton harvesting stripped burrs, twigs and all begins a three-month season that usually ends into our 12-foot canvas sacks before Christmas. and let the cotton gin worry As soon as they were quartered in their shack about it. or tent, workers hit the fields: whites, Mexican- We were no strangers to Americans, Southern blacks, Chinese, Japanese Arizona. As migrant workers, and Filipinos. When I was picking cotton Dad, Mom and I often left from 1939 to 1950, I rarely saw friction among our rented farm in September migrants. Each group stayed among themselves, towing a homemade trailer but everyone treated everyone else politely. On take a with basic possessions behind Sunday, the only day off, kids swam through a Model A pickup truck. irrigation culverts with other kids, regardless of Picking cotton in the Grand race, creed or color. Virtual Vacation Canyon State made half our Dad liked to be up at the crack of dawn, cash income for a year. Those because cotton weighed more when coated with bolls were like little white dew, which earned a few pennies more. Every Month loaves to us. On the round, tin wood-burning stove, Mom One winter, we rented a made oatmeal with brown sugar and canned and Save $2 on Each 2006 Calendar! two-room shack in an old milk. We ate, grabbed our sacks and hit the rows, Phoenix “motor court” on returning 12 hours later. Lunch was a couple of The 2006 Arizona Highways calendars are here Van Buren. Dad loaded his pickup with oranges cans of pork and beans with leftover biscuits, and so is a special offer for our magazine readers. Arizona Highways at a warehouse, then drove 40 miles to Apache eaten in the shade of a weigh-wagon. The work Junction to sell them to travelers. was hard and monotonous, the sun hot and scenic calendars make a perfect holiday gift. Our readers may order He was away when the motor court owner rattlesnakes not uncommon. any style and save $2 on each calendar. Don’t delay — this offer and her boyfriend torched the place for the Certain rattlers (Arizona has 12 different expires September 30, when the calendars go back to regular price. insurance. The fire raged all night. We all species, the most anywhere) favored cotton escaped, but Mom’s hair and gown were on fire fields for food, water and cover, and pickers when we crashed through the shack’s plywood were sometimes bitten. Once, burrowing head- now $11.99 door. In the hellish glare of flames and smoke, down through acrid-smelling rows and shoving a man sprayed us with a garden hose. The cotton into my sack, I almost touched a 3-foot Scenic Arizona Calendar 14 full-color photographs with descriptive text and arsonists, quickly caught, went to prison for life. rattler coiled around a cottonstalk. “when you go” information. On that memorable 1948 trip, we drove “Snake!” I screamed, backflipping over my 14"x 1 2" #CALSA6 was $13.99 through Childress, Texas (named for our family, heavy sack. “We got a rattlesnake here!” Dad insisted), and hit U.S. Route 66 at Amarillo. Some men killed the snake, which was a WE OFFER 2 EASY WAYS TO ORDER: By nightfall, we were in New Mexico. Bobby deadly Mohave rattler, believed to possess the Log on to arizonahighways.com or Troup’s rollicking “Route 66” aside, the trip was most potent neurotoxin of all rattlesnakes in the dull — except for the Riddle of the Runaway United States. Call toll-free 1-800-543-5432 (in the Phoenix area or outside the U.S., call Wheel. Migrant workers were the last slave class in 1 602-712-2000) Near Winslow, Arizona (“don’t forget America, at the mercy of rich farmers aided by a now $5.99 Winona”), we heard an awful thump, the pickup government that never aided field workers. It’s now $9.99 Use Promo Code #8248-MKT5. Act Classic Wall Calendar Engagement Now! Offer expires 9/30/05 swerved like a Saturday night drunk and a not a whole lot better today, except that folks Best seller for more than 35 years, with Calendar 2 wheel went whizzing off into the sagebrush at who benefit from “stoop labor” may appreciate 30 full-color photographs. 1 2" x 9" 60 full-color photographs great speed. migrant workers a little more. #CAL06 was $7.99 delivered to you in a mailable gift box. 6"x9" #ENG06 was $11.99 40 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com {back road adventure} by Janet Webb Farnsworth | photographs by LeRoy DeJolie

Old Coppermine Trading Post Keeps a Lonely Vigil in Navajoland

nip in the air signals snow in the high flat-topped mesas that characterize Navajoland. country, but I’m in Page at an elevation A sign warns that the pavement ends 11.5 A of 4,300 feet, and snow won’t reach miles ahead, but this is a well-maintained here. I’m off to explore an old trading post called school bus route. Coppermine, site of an abandoned copper mine Driving and gawking at scenery isn’t safe, so on the Navajo Indian Reservation. after a few miles I stop. , at Storm clouds put on a show that Navajo 10,388 feet elevation, looms to the northeast, photographer LeRoy DeJolie calls “dancing while the Navajo Generating Plant sits east light.” Like a stage spotlight, the sun lances of Page near 186-mile long Lake Powell. through clouds to highlight first one scene, then Westward, the Vermilion Cliffs rise sharply another. This country is hundreds of square above the Colorado River. miles of sandstone weather-sculpted into red The road climbs steadily across the Kaibito and white pinnacles, buttes and cliffs. What isn’t Plateau. Utah junipers appear as dark green sandstone is plain sand held in place by blue- splotches. I pass White Dome Tank and pull off gray sagebrush. at an interesting white cliff. My heart and tires As I begin the drive southward on Indian both sink as I realize this sand is deep. My truck Route 20, morning sun showcases the pulls out, but I make a mental note to avoid sand. Soon the paved highway turns into a hard- packed road covered by a squishy layer of sand flanked by soft, sandy shoulders. You can traverse this road in a passenger car in dry [right] The abandoned Coppermine Trading weather if you avoid the shoulders, but beware of Post on the Navajo fishtailing. Indian Reservation Turning right onto Indian Route 6210 after in northeast Arizona served local residents 19 miles, I follow the road west .3 mile to the until the 1980s. abandoned Coppermine Trading Post. Mining [below] Salmon-colored claims for ore in the area were filed in 1892, rock layers striate the Navajo sandstone but copper mining was stymied by 110 miles of formations that typify rough country to Flagstaff, the nearest railhead. the landscape near Page. Sand covered 25 miles of that route, making [opposite page] A piñon wagon travel impossible. pine tree encroaches on the crumbling walls Tests in 1905 proved the turquoise rock a of a former dwelling. rich 32 percent-grade copper, but investors balked at the cost of building a railroad. World War I created a copper shortage, sparking new interest in the mine. So when the Caterpillar tractor promised to solve the sand problem, investors ordered a dozen. Bobsberg, a town named for general manager Robert Mitchell, sprang up near the mine. The Caterpillars worked through the sand, pulling 10 ore cars at 5 mph. At war’s end, copper prices plunged and the ore petered out. By 1918, the company had financial woes, and in 1924 the last Caterpillars were sold for back taxes. The mine reopened sporadically. Local resident John C. Begay recalls, “There were no other jobs, so I worked there from 1963 to ’65.” John Lane, 75, of the Many Goats Clan, remembers the hard manual labor required to load the copper into the cargo cars. But all efforts failed, and

42 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 43 { back road adventure}

Luckily Ron Wood, an APS employee out route finder checking equipment, takes pity on me. After an hour of shoveling and pulling, he rescues me and > From U.S. Route 89 in Page, go 2.6 miles east on State I meekly head another mile to the chapter house. Route 98 to the stoplighted Chapter houses serve much like town halls intersection with Indian Route and are a meeting place for local . A 20, also called Coppermine Road. windmill provides water in this high desert. > Turn right (south) onto Indian 20. White cliffs on From this point, I head west to meet U.S. left (13 miles). Pavement Route 89. As I pass through an open gate, I bear ends (14.4 miles). right. The unsigned road soon connects with > Turn right (west) on 6210 at a Y intersection. Indian Route 6210 (18.9 A sign lists U.S. 89 as 14 miles away. There miles). Drive .3 mile to Coppermine Trading Post. are some rough washboards, and I’m tempted to > Continue west on 6210 for drive in the smoother shoulder until I remember .3 mile to Y junction with a that sand. stop sign and mileage sign. Approximately three hours after leaving Page, > Turn left almost 180 including the time I was stuck, I hit U.S. 89 degrees and drive .6 mile, pass at Milepost 530. Sand turns to pavement and through a gate and enter the chapter house compound. To glowering clouds part, lighting the Echo Cliffs in leave the compound, retrace red glory. the route back to 6210. Bear As I watch nature’s display, I remember life is left and take 6210 west for 14 miles to U.S. 89. a circle. Sand hardens to sandstone, then wears away back to sand, then sandstone again. [above] The weathering in the 1980s the mine was covered and the land and a pile of rusting orange metal remain from a from the sand. Wanting a closer look, I foolishly In an eon or two, there will be process continues to reclaimed. Only a white hill resembling a sand tractor, and a pine board outhouse lies tipped over. pull off onto a sandy side road. It is my downfall. another sandstone formation GLEN CANYON NATIONAL sculpt Coppermine Ridge, RECREATION AREA UTAH ARIZONA dune remains. Piñon trees grow at this 6,300-foot elevation The bottomless sand traps my four-wheel drive here. Maybe that sand that ll formerly an important 89 e ow P N Navajo watering place. The Coppermine Trading Post lasted until with wild four-o’clocks, Mormon tea and an and I’m hopelessly stuck. My cell phone reads captured me will be called Lake S [opposite page] A F START HERE the 1980s. Wilford Lane remembers, “Canned out-of-place elm tree. It is eerily quiet. A gust of “No service.” Adding to my misery, clouds that the Janet Sandstone IF L hard object, such as a C PAGE Navajo

goods and merchandise lined the walls with a wind rattles a tin door and I jump, spooked by earlier produced dancing light, now sprinkle Formation. Then again, Generating Plant boulder, can arrest the N IO erosion process atop a counter in the middle. The trader stood behind Coppermine ghosts. cold raindrops. maybe not. IL d M a ER 98 sandstone formation, V o the counter, and customers pointed at what they Leaving behind the silent spirits, I backtrack R

NAVAJO INDIAN RESERVATION resulting in pillar caps. e

wanted. Navajos charged items and paid up the short distance on Indian 6210 and turn south n i Vehicle Requirements: Dirt roads accessible r e m when they sold fall lambs or wool in the spring.” on 20 again. The road, now narrow and rough, v r by passenger cars in dry weather. i e White Dome R p

p The now-abandoned trading post, a dark allows only 25 mph. Within a few minutes, I arning Do not pull onto soft sand on shoulders. Be aware of Tank U W : o o 89A A d C E wooden building with a white sign above the turn right onto a well-traveled but unnumbered weather and road conditions. Carry plenty of water. Don’t travel alone, a T r Milepost A o L and let someone know where you’re going and when you plan to return. l 530 20 P door, is attached to a sandstone building studded road leading to Coppermine Chapter House. (I o C O Travel Advisory: Navajo Nation permits are not needed as long as you IT with turquoise-colored ore. A rock patio and short later learned there’s a better route to the chapter AIB stay on numbered roads. To hike or camp, get a permit. Please respect the K 6210 stone walls provided outside seating for customers. house; see “Route Finder” on opposite page.) Navajo people’s privacy. Do not remove anything. Food and lodging are available in Page. Coppermine 89 Other small buildings, including a rock hogan, White rock formations are cracked in Additional Information: Navajo Nation Parks and Recreation, (928) 871-6636; Coppermine

served as living quarters or storage. Rotting tires checkerboard patterns, and hoodoo pillars rise Page Chamber of Commerce, toll-free (888) 261-7243, www.page-lakepowell.com. Chapter House KEVIN KIBSEY To Flagstaff

44 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 45 {destination} by Melissa Morrison | photographs by David H. Smith

Getting There Is Half the Fun at Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory

y first glimpse of the Fred Lawrence Two dozen of us boarded a white Blue Bird bus Whipple Observatory was of a tall white for the drive up the mountain. The 10-mile road, M box poised serenely on the top of Mount which looks like an endless strand of spaghetti Hopkins. It didn’t have the traditional domed roof slapped onto the mountainside and which skirts of most observatories, but then the famed telescope breathtakingly close to the precipice, is only wide it houses isn’t like most telescopes. enough to accommodate one vehicle. I wisely Photographer David H. Smith’s My tour started at the observatory Visitors chose an inside seat. reflection captured in the mirrors Center, located in the of the While driver Dave Martina negotiated the turns, of the Fred Lawrence Whipple Coronado National Forest south of Tucson. The docent Tom Saville took my mind off imminent Observatory’s optical reflector provides a graphic visual display center has exhibits ranging from star charts to vertigo with a running commentary. During the of its light-collecting capabilities. Whipple’s space-themed neckties. 45-minute crawl, he pointed out landmarks such as the Two Hole Mine and a singular Apache pine tree. But his enthusiasm really sparked when he talked about astronomy. The first official space gazing done here was by the U.S. military in the late 1960s to track satellites and map the Earth from space. The region’s still air, high altitude and proximity to a university made it ideal for an observatory. The Smithsonian Institution and the University of Arizona joined forces to construct the Multiple-Mirror Telescope (MMT), the world’s third most powerful telescope when it was built in 1979. Our bus reached the 7,600-foot top three climatic zones later. The ridge featured one of the most discombobulating sights of the entire tour. What looked like a three-story shimmering Op Art installation was actually a reflector used for gamma Surrounded by the Santa Rita Mountains in the rectangular building that allows the telescope to Location: Thirty-five ray research. A mirror mosaic of Coronado National Forest south of Tucson, the move up and down and side to side, reducing miles south of Tucson. observatory takes advantage of clear views of the more than 200 dinner-plate-sized “swing space.” Moreover, the whole 600-ton Getting There: From night sky to observe gamma-ray flashes and other Tucson, take Interstate hexagonal paillettes, its combined astronomical phenomena. building moves, shifting with the telescope. 19 south to Exit 56 power could burn a hole through a We crowded onto the fourth-floor observation (Canoa). Turn left at 3/8-inch plate of steel if facing the fingers became too cold to move a pen, but deck, with a view of the telescope’s white rear, the bottom of the exit sun, said Saville. We took turns I remembered this fact: The MMT we were trailing elephant trunks of pipes and tangles of ramp, then right onto the eastside frontage road. Drive 3 miles to positioning ourselves in front of it to about to see had the power to distinguish yellow and black wires. In front, staff were doing Elephant Head Road. Turn left and see our piecemeal reflections, giant- George Washington’s ear on a quarter from maintenance on the MMT’s secondary mirror, drive about 1 mile to Mount Hopkins sized and upside down. 5 miles away. pinging and clanking like the sound track for a Road. Turn right and drive about Nearby, three small telescopes After a picnic lunch in a neighboring glade, sci-fi movie. 7 miles to the Visitors Center. huddled in three domed it was up to the 8,550-foot summit to see the “You guys are in luck,” came a disembodied Hours: Six-hour tours of the telescopes, held from mid-March miniobservatories. Inside, the star attraction. voice from below. “We’re going to move the through November, are led Monday, building was freezing cold, cooled “Multiple-mirror telescope” is no longer an telescope.” Wednesday and Friday. The Visitors to the outside evening temperature accurate description. In the last decade, engineers This was a rare treat. Because the telescope Center is open Monday through to minimize the distorting effects replaced the telescope’s innovative six 1.8-meter works at night, few visitors ever see it move. It Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Fees: $7, adults; $2.50, ages 6 to 12. of turbulent heated air. Though (71-inch) mirrors with a twice-as-powerful design: tilted upward with a slow grandeur, while emitting Events: Star Parties, featuring jacketless, Saville was unfazed one gigantic mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) wide. robotic bleeps. lectures and telescope viewing, by the chill and regaled us with The effort of transporting this most fragile of The movement lasted only seconds, but it felt are held four Saturdays a year explanations on topics ranging objects up the mountainside brought to mind an like the culmination of a great effort. We had beginning in late afternoon. Call from refracting vs. reflecting old Keystone Cops routine, only this one had $20 climbed a mountain on a pilgrimage to view the the center for the next date. Additional Information: telescopes to planets outside our million and six years of labor at stake. behemoth that sees back to the beginnings of the (520) 670-5707; cfa-www.harvard. solar system. At a certain point, my The MMT is housed in a cost-efficient, universe. edu/flwo/visitcenter.html.

arizonahighways.com arizonahighways.com ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 47 {hike of the month} by Lori K. Baker | photographs by Steve Bruno

Thumb Butte Walkers Enter Land of Falcons and Abert’s Squirrels

bout 3,000 hikers amble up the slopes gold, and scatterings of wildflowers, including of Prescott’s distinctive landmark, brilliant yellow goldenrods and orange-red Thumb Butte, on a typical month, penstemons. A repeated rat-a-tat-tat punctuated making it the Prescott National Forest’s most the peaceful silence; then we spotted the culprit: popular hike. Tantalized by this tidbit, I decided a pesky black and white woodpecker high in a to discover why. ponderosa pine. My husband and I are both hiking enthusiasts After hiking south nearly a mile, the trail who’d happily skip any hardship associated with veered to the east. Less than a quarter of a mile the great outdoors, including cramped tents, later, we reached the junction to the Groom heavy backpacks and dehydrated food. Creek Vista, which offered a spectacular bird’s- So the 2-mile, 90-minute eye view of a wide-open azure sky. At the Thumb Butte Loop Trail sounded overlook, I saw the towering Bradshaw, Sierra appealing — I jokingly called it Prieta, Granite and Mingus mountains rising on “Back-country Lite.” We could the horizon, and a high basin cradling Prescott, sample the 1.25 million-acre once Arizona’s Territorial capital. We lingered on Prescott National Forest in central a bench, relishing the view and watching three Arizona in the morning and daring rock climbers scale chimneys leading to still browse historic downtown Thumb Butte’s summit. Prescott’s shops and restaurants in This summit is off-limits to rock climbers the afternoon. from February 1 to July 15, when a pair of When we arrived at the peregrine falcons, lifetime mates, return here trailhead on a recent September each year to nest. morning—temperature a perfect For conservationists, it’s a sign of hope. The 75 degrees—fluffy cumulus clouds peregrine population crashed in the 1970s floated lazily in a cerulean sky, and after several decades on a DDT-tainted diet that the calming scent of ponderosa resulted in eggs so thin they were crushed by

[above and opposite page] pine hung heavily in the air. the weight of incubating adults. At its nadir, the Thumb Butte’s knobby summit Taking a deep, relaxing breath, I suddenly didn’t raptors’ numbers plunged by 90 percent. One of juts above a hillside covered with care if I ever got back to civilization. the first species protected under the Endangered ponderosa and piñon pines, junipers and Gambel oaks west of Prescott. We quickly passed a sign marked Trail No. Species Act, the peregrine was delisted in 33 and veered right on the loop trail to take 1999 — 27 years after DDT was banned. advantage of a more gradual climb. In the shade After we headed north down the loop trail, of towering ponderosa pine trees with a view going back to the parking lot, we understood Location: of the dark basalt Thumb Butte, we followed why so many hikers come here. In less than Approximately 103 miles the path angling south past scattered chaparral: two hours, we’d witnessed the handiwork of the northwest of Phoenix. Arizona white oak, mountain mahogany, animal kingdom’s clever architects and the bold Getting There: manzanita and juniper. return of the peregrine falcon. And we could From Phoenix, drive north on Interstate Within a quarter mile, I spotted a gray Abert’s still indulge our Inner Urbanites on nouveau 17 approximately 62 squirrel with tasseled ears and an upturned tail Southwestern cuisine and café latte in historic miles and get off at Exit 262, State scampering away at the sound of our pebble- downtown Prescott, just minutes away. Route 69. Travel northwest about crunching footsteps. 34 miles and then follow the sign to Gurley Street, which passes One of the trail’s many interpretive signs through downtown Prescott. From explained you can spot the squirrels’ nests downtown, travel west on Gurley high in the ponderosa pines: “They look like -PRESCOTT INDIAN RESERVATION Street, which becomes Thumb Butte messy clumps of needles, but are actually ek Road. Continue on to the Thumb re carefully built homes with entrances, C

Butte picnic area, located about 3 te ceilings and inside linings of soft TRAILHEAD ni 89 miles from Prescott’s courthouse. Gra T Fees: $2 parking fee. materials.” hum 69 b Sheldon St. Additional Information: Prescott Sure enough, we spotted several B To I-17 ut National Forest, Bradshaw Ranger Thumb Butte te Gurley St. (Phoenix) squirrels’ nests as we trudged onward. Rd. District, (928) 443-8000; http:// Yavapai County www.fs.fed.us/r3/prescott Classified as a moderate trail, the Courthouse /orient/orient_brad.htm. path at times rose steeply past gambel PRESCOTT N

oaks, whose distinctive large-lobed St. Montezuma PRESCOTT leaves had just begun to turn autumn NATIONAL FOREST 89 online Before you go on this hike, visit arizonahighways.com for other things

to do and places to see in this area. You’ll also find 56 more hikes in our archive. To Wickenburg KEVIN KIBSEY

48 SEPTEMBER 2005 arizonahighways.com Mysteries Swirl About the ‘Other’ Earp’s Willcox Grave

SEPTEMBER 2005

Explore Arizona’s 6 National Forests n 12 Unique Family Adventures n A Rim With a View n Thumb Butte Wildlife n Rangers Tell Strange Tales