ART TOURS GUIDE: Tubac Artists Sketch Life Lessons NOVEMBER 2006 Discover Desert Painted Rivers Desert Wonders Explore a Haunted Inn Looters Plunder the Past Wander a Trail of the Wind november 2006 contents on our cover Discover Departments Desert Rivers 2 DEAR EDITOR 3 ALL WHO WANDER 20 Rivers Run Through It Pieces of the past deserve their Arizona’s rivers reveal their personalities place in history and on the land. and scenic splendors in this portfolio excerpt from our latest Scenic Collection book. 4 VIEWFINDER BY PETER ALESHIRE / PHOTOGRAPHS BY RANDY PRENTICE Esther Henderson and other top photographers have stories to tell. 30 Feathered Fantasy BY JOBETH JAMISON 5 TAKING THE OFF-RAMP Artist Virgil Walker creates gods one plume at a Explore Arizona oddities, time. PHOTOGRAPHS BY RICHARD K. WEBB attractions and pleasures. ENDANGERED DESERT The colorful formations of the Painted Desert harbor 42 ALONG THE WAY many treasures, from 220 million-year-old 32 Balloon-powered BY SYLVIA SOMERVILLE No greater "gym" than the Canyon. Page's hot air regatta convinces a first-timer to dinosaur bones to 1,000-year-old pots. But efforts to protect it have faltered. See forsake the ground. PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFF KIDA 44 HIKE OF THE MONTH stories, pages 8, 14 and 16. GEORGE STOCKING Parker Canyon Lake boasts eagles. n To order a print of this photograph, 36 Live Art BY VERA MARIE BADERTSCHER 46 BACK ROAD ADVENTURE see information on opposite page. Tubac tour explores love, life and the creative Kofa Mountains trip mingles FRONT COVER Magical Havasu Falls mind. PHOTOGRAPHS BY DAVID ZICKL history, scenery and wildlife. plunges into a travertine-tinted pool on its tumble down to the Colorado River, one of the vital waterways featured in the newly released book Desert Rivers, Painted Desert arizonahighways.com excerpted in this month's Portfolio. See online story, page 20. RANDY PRENTICE From late October to mid-November, Arizona’s higher n To order a print of this photograph, Wonders see information on opposite page. elevations dress in the most brilliant reds, oranges and golds. It’s sweater weather up north, and the southern half of the 8 On the Trail of the Wind BY SCOTT THYBONY BACK COVER Arizona artist Virgil Walker Trek threads through fossils and fluted fantasy. state is finally enjoying long-awaited cooler temperatures. uses thousands of feathers to create To experience autumn in Arizona, go to arizonahighways.com evocative masks with a mystical feeling like PHOTOGRAPHS BY LARRY LINDAHL and click on the November trip planner for: Naranja Armaga, shown here. See story, Photographic • A guide to low country fall color page 30. RICHARD K. WEBB 14 A Spirited Restoration BY ANDREA LANKFORD Prints Available Inn returned to its glory — ghosts and all. • Urban art walks n Prints of some photographs are PHOTOGRAPHS BY GEORGE STOCKING • The lowdown on Petrified Forest dinosaurs available for purchase, as HUMOR Our writer discusses avian financial advantages. designated in captions. To order, call toll-free (866) 962-1191 or visit 16 Protecting the Past BY MARK BRODIE ONLINE EXTRA Follow the tracks of Arizona’s legendary Pegleg. www.magazineprints.com. Looters plunder land flagged for Petrified HISTORY Gen. Nelson A. Miles’ deeds exiled two Arizona heroes. Forest National Park expansion. EXPERIENCE ARIZONA Plan a trip with our calendar of events. PHOTOGRAPHS BY GEORGE STOCKING Poor, Dumb Editor In “Taking the Off-Ramp” (August ’06), in the piece on swimming the Colorado River, this line appears: “The NOVEMBER 2006 VOL. 82, NO. 11 all who wander all idea came from a mutual friend, John Bursell, in a Publisher WIN HOLDEN discussion of the dangers of such a hairbrained swim.” Of Editor PETER ALESHIRE course, the word is harebrained, based on a rabbit’s crazy Senior Editor BETH DEVENY Managing Editor RANDY SUMMERLIN ideas. As an old English teacher, I can’t resist. Web/Research Editor SALLY BENFORD —Bob Longley, Salisbury, CT Book Division Editor BOB ALBANO Books Associate Editor EVELYN HOWELL Good catch. Perhaps the guy had a wild hair up his brain, which resulted Preserving Special Projects Editor JOBETH JAMISON in the hairbrained idea. And since I have you, is it true that English Editorial Administrator NIKKI KIMBEL Editorial Assistant PAULY HELLER dear editor teachers never retire, they just fail to conjugate? — Peter Aleshire, Editor a Hopi Prayer Director of Photography PETER ENSENBERGER Photography Editor RICHARD MAACK Look It Up, Dunderhead! correct, but most historians credit the I SIT PERFECTLY STILL in a sacred place with a Art Director BARBARA GLYNN DENNEY Aw, come on! The proofreader must have Buffalo Soldier name to the buffalo having Deputy Art Director BILLIE JO BISHOP yearning in my heart, staring fixedly at a palm-sized been out to lunch when page 39 was a patch of black curly hair between their Art Assistant DIANA BENZEL-RICE piece of painted, 700-year-old pottery. The white Map Designer KEVIN KIBSEY approved for printing in August 2006. horns, similar to the soldiers’ hair. pottery has abstract geometric figures painted onto Production Director KIM ENSENBERGER I don’t know what the “dapper young —Walter E. Bull, Prescott Promotions Art Director RONDA JOHNSON the surface and the thumbprints of the maker on the collector” is pouring over his collection of Historians debate how the Buffalo Soldiers got their Webmaster VICKY SNOW curving inner side. I want it so badly. postcards, but whatever it is, it is bound name, but the Buffalo Soldier National Museum credits Director of Sales & Marketing KELLY MERO Just behind me, the eyeless sockets of a ruined arizonahighways.com to make a mess. Try pore, v.i. 1. to gaze the Plains Indians with giving the nickname as a sign of Circulation Director HOLLY CARNAHAN fortress watch, waiting for me to make my choice. by Peter Aleshire, editor @ intently or steadily. 2. to look searchingly; respect for the soldiers’ fierce fighting. — Sally Benford, Finance Director BOB ALLEN I could so easily slip this shard of a vanished read carefully; study minutely (with over): Research Editor Information Technology CINDY BORMANIS civilization into my pack and carry it through editor as, he pored over the book. the thickets that have protected this Sierra Ancha Inquiries or orders Toll-free: (800) 543-5432 —Pat Pearson, Skull Valley Whip the Editor With a Blurry Photo! Phoenix area or outside the U.S. (602) 712-2000 settlement all this while. Here it is wasted, but GOOF: 1) Mistaking pour for pore. 2) Seeing it 99 times Several photos in the July and August Or visit arizonahighways.com on my desk this shard would connect me to this and not noticing. 3) Hiring a writer as editor. — Ed. 2006 issues are not even close to your For Corporate or Trade Sales Dolores Field (602) 712-2045 place, these people, these mysteries. usual standards. The inside cover photo in Letters to the Editor [email protected] Perhaps if I finger it long enough, I will understand it impossible to conduct the NOBODY HOME Perpetrating a Myth the July issue depicts an amazingly fuzzy 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85009 why the Anchan people abandoned their rich fields along ceremony. The only person This 600-year-old ruin in the Sierra Ancha range poses a mystery for While your August 2006 issue names roadrunner. If that weren’t bad enough, Governor the Salt River and moved up into this cliffside pueblo. who still knows the full archaeologists. PETER ALESHIRE the Buffalo Soldiers for their courage, the August issue actually has two such JANET NAPOLITANO Their laboriously constructed refuge lasted about a century ceremony is a frail, 80-year-old Director, Department of Transportation combat abilities, etc., I believe you are inferior photos in the Colorado River story. VICTOR M. MENDEZ before they vanished—part of a baffling regional collapse of holy woman. She cannot even pass on the knowledge and perpetuating a myth on the origin of their I do hope this lax photo-editing does not civilizations in the 1400s. rituals without the altar. ARIZONA TRANSPORTATION BOARD name. No doubt the attributes listed are continue and I also hope these photos are Chairman James W. Martin Of course, taking the piece of pottery would be akin to Thinking of the holy woman and the lost prayer, I put down not blamed on digital photography. Vice Chairman Joe Lane tearing down a church to make wind chimes of the stained the piece of painted pottery, placing it exactly where it has lain U.S. Postal Service Members S.L. Schorr, Delbert Householder, STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT, AND CIRCULATION —Nancy Fasino, Tucson Robert M. Montoya, Felipe Andres Zubia, glass window. It would connect me not with the Anchans but these past seven centuries. Title of Publication: Arizona Highways Publisher: Win Holden William J. Feldmeier Publication No.: ISSN 0004-1521 Editor: Peter Aleshire I am abashed, and can’t blame digital, since with the looters digging up such pots in a mythic piece of the The Hopis believe that the Creator grew so vexed with Date of Filing: July 1, 2006 Managing Editor: Randy Summerlin; address below those were all 35 mm slides. I promise to be more International Regional Magazine Association Painted Desert that Congress has designated for protection irreverent people that He drowned the world. Only a few Frequency of issues: Monthly Complete mailing address 2004, 2003, 2001, 2000 Magazine of the Year Number of issues of known office of publication: careful — and suspicious of all 35 mm slides! — Ed. as part of the Petrified Forest National Park. Unfortunately, people escaped through a hole in the top of that world published annually: Twelve 2039 W.