Drive to a Volcano and an Ancient Metropolis | Jail Can’t Hold Lawman Back to Nature Wildlife Viewing 11 Trips A Plumage of Myth Odd Mating Habits of Birds and Birders Saving Desert Eagles Apaches Reveal Secret Landscape Departments 2 DEAR EDITOR Back to 3 ALL WHO WANDER april 2006 Our editor reflects on the whitewater thrill Nature of his first year. pages 8-39 4 VIEWFINDER Wildlife photographer 8 Eagles Wear 38 11 Great Wildlife learns about life Plumage of Myth BY CARRIE M. MINER Viewing Trips BY CLINT VAN WINKLE from critters. Native American eagle stories mingle thunder, fear, Nature is calling, answer. We offer 11 great 5 TAKING THE healing and awe. PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM VEZO places to see an ark-load of watchable OFF-RAMP wild things. Explore Arizona 16 Nestwatchers Save a Species oddities, attractions BY RICHARD L. GLINSKI 40 No Jail Can Hold Lawman contents and pleasures. Desert bald eagles have recovered thanks to people BY DAVID M. BROWN who spend months camping out and playing nanny to Turned Outlaw 43 ALONG THE WAY Burt Alvord turned out to be far more accomplished vulnerable chicks. PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM VEZO A Marine seeks solace as a robber and jail breaker than as a somewhere between constable. ILLUSTRATION BY EZRA TUCKER Baghdad and Bagdad. 20 Apaches’ Language 44 HIKE OF of the Land BY CHARLES BOWDEN THE MONTH White Mountain Apaches open sacred mountain to FRONT COVER The bald eagle is a feared Ghosts linger along Camp ecotours, and a photographer discovers a secret predator and an icon of the ages. See stories, Beale Trail in Kingman. waterfall. PHOTOGRAPHS BY JACK DYKINGA pages 8 and 16. TOM VEZO n To order a print call (866) 962-1191 or visit 46 BACK ROAD www.magazineprints.com. ADVENTURE 32 Odd Mating Habits of Birds BACK COVER Pacheta Falls spills 131 feet Sunset Crater to Wupatki: and Birders Revealed toward the Black River on the White Mountain Cataclysm to comeback. BY PETER ALESHIRE Apache Indian Reservation. Charles Bowden A man named Walraven invokes whiskered owls and and Jack Dykinga take a stunning, Apache- guided ecotour through usually hidden sacred whispering birders to illuminate the strange love life land. See story, page 20. JACK DYKINGA of birds and bird lovers. PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM VEZO n To order a print call (866) 962-1191 or visit 36 Audubon Society www.magazineprints.com. Celebrates 100 Years BY RANDY SUMMERLIN The world’s feathered folks are living a bit better, thanks to this group. online arizonahighways.com This month on our Web site, we answer the call of the wild with trips to our favorite destinations for viewing Arizona’s unique wildlife. Go to arizonahighways.com and click on our “Nature Travel Guide” for: • Favorite eco-friendly ways to enjoy Arizona’s natural resources. • Hot spots for birders. PLUS, get our regular monthly online-only features: HUMOR Our writer can’t decide how to pick up the dinner tab. ONLINE EXTRA Sail away on northern Arizona lakes. WEEKEND GETAWAY Study ancient solar calendars at Petrified Forest National Park. GUIDING LIGHT [this page] The sun casts TRAVEL THROUGH TIME Arizona’s imaginary town lives on. a ghostly spotlight into the Navajo hogan of Andrew Henry, a skilled silversmith, best EXPERIENCE ARIZONA Use our statewide calendar of events. known for his storytelling bracelets depicting life in Canyon de Chelly. COLLEEN MINIUK-SPERRY Recruiting Younger Readers Meadow Jones and her parents (our daughter and son- in-law) love visiting us in Arizona, and they get a gift THRILL RIDE who wander all APRIL 2006 VOL. 82, NO. 4 subscription to Arizona Highways from us. The magazine Running Grand Canyon’s is Meadow’s favorite reading material while practicing Publisher WIN HOLDEN Lava Falls Rapids is a lot like editing a magazine. Editor PETER ALESHIRE her potty skills. Her vocabulary has been considerably KERRICK JAMES enhanced with cactus, condor and many other words. Senior Editor BETH DEVENY Managing Editor RANDY SUMMERLIN Emma and Jeffrey Burch, Fountain Hills, AZ Web/Research Editor SALLY BENFORD This month, Highways is 81 years young and counting, and with readers Books Editor BOB ALBANO Editorial Administrator CONNIE BOCH like Meadow, we expect to be here another 81 years at least. Can you say Editorial Assistant PAULY HELLER Mercifully, our beloved readers have dear editor “ecotourism,” sweetie? –Peter Aleshire, Editor Director of Photography PETER ENSENBERGER responded. Newsstand sales jumped by Photography Editor RICHARD MAACK about a third, our circulation decline slowed Why I Read Arizona Highways media has ever reflected “reality.” I would Art Director BARBARA GLYNN DENNEY significantly, sales of books and calendars Deputy Art Director BILLIE JO BISHOP I was born in Bisbee [Brewery Gulch] like to say to all involved in this debate— Art Assistant DIANA BENZEL-RICE rose, our bank account grew. and spent my younger years there. My don’t take yourself and the images you Map Designer KEVIN KIBSEY I did a number of dumb things that father worked in the mines and died produce so seriously! Have some fun! Production Director KIM ENSENBERGER might have capsized the raft. Fortunately, when I was 11 and my brother 14. Jerry Sieve, Phoenix Promotions Art Director RONDA JOHNSON the most wonderful collection of writers, Webmaster VICKY SNOW Our uncle took us on a camping trip Arizona Highways contributing photographer Passing Through the Maelstrom With photographers, editors, friends and fellow Director of Sales & Marketing KELLY MERO across Arizona to help us with our loss travelers yanked me back each time I started Circulation Director HOLLY CARNAHAN arizonahighways.com after my father died. So the three of us Almost Like a Humor Page to slide off the pontoon. Finance Director BOB ALLEN by Peter Aleshire, editor @ and an old dog went on a two-month My father moved us to Arizona when I Hope and Help Moreover, I’ve been sustained, tolerated Information Technology CINDY BORMANIS trip. The only rules were not to drive on was a young girl. He had been a medic and inspired by our wonderful readers, even editor a paved road unless there was no other during World War II and did not often Inquiries or orders Toll-free: (800) 543-5432 CRAIG, THE ADONIS ideal of a boatman, pivoted the unwieldy when you write to point out some blunder. Clearly, you love Phoenix area or outside the U.S. (602) 712-2000 way and to leave our camping places like speak of his experiences there. One Or visit arizonahighways.com pontoon boat deftly into the gyre of quiet water behind the this luminous and lyrical magazine as much as I do. Coming to we were never there. We got to see, feel night in France, he and a buddy found primordial monolith of the Anvil. We could hear the ravenous work is a joy. and live in some wonderful backcountry. themselves wandering through an old For Corporate or Trade Sales Dolores Field (602) 712-2045 roar of Lava Falls Rapids downstream. Of course, I worry I’ll puncture a pontoon. I love this Letters to the Editor [email protected] We also met people who treated us like farm. Dad heard a noise and called out, 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85009 I trembled with 200 miles worth of anticipation of the magazine so much that it would break my heart to hurt it. family on and off the reservations. “Bite the dirt!” They both dove into a most violent Grand Canyon rapid, but I still had not decided But then I remember how much Lava Falls frightened me Now that I’m in my senior years, I pile of manure. They lay there silently, Governor whether to sit on the front of the pontoon for the plunge into just before my son crawled out onto the front of the pontoon JANET NAPOLITANO cannot just now go back to Arizona to making sure all was safe. When they got Director, Department of Transportation the rapid or stay safely in the “chicken coop” in the center. and gripped the ropes for the descent into the pit of Lava. As feel the warm sun, see the sunsets and up, my dad’s buddy reported that he had VICTOR M. MENDEZ Craig launched into a witty discourse, like a Disneyland you have done, he gave me the courage to swallow the lump of live in the places that helped me learn lost his dentures. They searched through ARIZONA TRANSPORTATION BOARD jungle-boat driver on a river with real hippos and headhunters. my heart and climb onto the bright blue tip of the pontoon. Chairman James W. Martin how to deal with my loss. But I can the manure, fished out the teeth and Vice Chairman Joe Lane The furious rapids were all that remained of an extinct The maelstrom of water sucked in the great raft like a scrap just for a little while, when I get your rinsed them off in the watering trough. Members S.L. Schorr, Delbert Householder, volcano’s foolish attempt to thwart the Colorado River, and we of hope. The raft plunged, slid, rose, trembled, bent, folded, Robert M. Montoya, Felipe Andres Zubia, magazine. I hope someday to take my As my dad’s buddy placed the false teeth William J. Feldmeier had anticipated the upcoming five minutes of fear and fury shuddered, then plunged again. We clung to the rope as our son and grandson to Arizona so that back in his mouth, dad joked “Hey, for a week. I can perfectly recall the pounding of my pulse in fingers purpled, screaming, spitting and laughing in a chaos International Regional Magazine Association they can see for themselves why I read when I said bite the dirt, I didn’t mean it 2004, 2003, 2001, 2000 Magazine of the Year earshot of Lava, with my pride and my hopes and my sons of sound and water.