arizona highlands spring

HIKING FOOLS!

$2.95 Spring 2010

10 great spring hikes

TIPS FORBLOSSOMADDICTS

HighlandsARIZONA

Adventuring in Rim Country, White Mountains, Sedona, Flagstaff

SEDONA

Dancing ghosts

RIM COUNTRY

Arizona’s best lakes

WHITE MOUNTAINS

Drive through the clouds

FLAGSTAFF

Clues to The Great Dying

Enhance your lifestyle

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inally, I let myself sit by a patch of poppies — settlingwearily on a sigh. Sticking my right foot straight out infront — I stared without much hope at my boot. Should I

unlace and examine the blister? Probably not. Some things ahiker doesn’t need to know.

Now, was I a smart fella, I’d have stuck some mole skin inmy pocket before setting off to hunt downthe most famous killer in American history.In that case, I could in fact take off my cruelshoes and apply the mole skin. But I clearlyain’t no smart fella. No news flash there —seeing as how I’d set out in brand new bootson a hike of uncertain duration. Heck — Iwasn’t even bright enough to turn aroundan hour ago, when my foot started trying towarn me.

But I just couldn’t turn around. Notwhen I was so close. I knew that Geronimoand the most famous band of renegades inour whole history had lived for a time alongTurkey Creek on the White MountainApache Reservation. I must be close.

The ferocious Apache war shaman hadfascinated me for years. I even wrote a bi-ography of Geronimo and his nemesis —General George Crook. Geronimo spent nearly 50 years fight-ing first the Mexicans and then the Americans. He was never achief, but all his life led war parties. The Apache say no bulletcould kill him and he could foresee the movements of his ene-mies. Must be true — considering that at the end he and 17 war-riors eluded a combined total of 10,000 American and Mexicansoldiers. His enemies finally had to trick him into surrendering

with false promises. He spent his last years far from these hills asa prisoner, making bows he sold to tourists. He could make chil-dren scream by hiding a pebble in a hole left by one of the manybullets that could not kill him.

So instead, he died of exposure, lying drunk in a ditch —never allowed to return to this place where I stood.

I sighed. I would have to turn around now— hobble back to the Jeep, through the twilightand into the dark.

That’s the thing about striking off on ahike in Arizona — you pass through time andlost worlds. Don’t take my word for it — try thetreks in our hiking guide. Heck, try any of theadventures offered in this issue — rappelthrough waterfalls in sacred Cibecue Canyon,chase poppies, solve the riddle of the ruins ofSedona, catch your limit in Bear Canyon Lake.

But don’t be like me. Don’t wear newboots, forget your mole skin, hike into thedarkness — and limp home scratched andbruised. Although, I guess there’s worse thanscratched and bruised, hungry and cold.

Because what I remember now about thathike up Turkey Creek came on the hobblehome in the last glint of light in the dirt.

Stooping, I picked up a shell casing — an old, brass, Sharps .50caliber. In the most famous photo ever taken of Geronimo, he’sglowering at the camera, holding a Sharps rifle.

I can just barely remember the blister, but I’ll never forgetthe weight of that casing in my hand.

All of which leaves us with just one mystery.Why the heck don’t I go hiking more?

Hardhike onkiller’s

trail

F

John Naughton, Publisher • Tom Brossart, Managing Editor/Photographer • Peter Aleshire, Senior Editor708 N. Beeline Highway • PO Box 2520 • Payson, AZ 85547 • (928) 474-5251 • [email protected]

No portion of the Arizona Highlands Magazine may be used in any manner without the expressed written consent of the publisher. ArizonaHighlands Magazine is published by Roundup Publishing, a division of WorldWest Limited Liability Company. © 2010

HighlandsARIZONATo advertise in the

Arizona Highlands Magazine,call Bobby Davis, Advertising Director,

(928) 474-5251 ext. 105, or [email protected]

To purchase any of thephotos in this edition

of Arizona HighlandsMagazine, e-mail us at

[email protected]

Tom Brossart

by Peter Aleshire

5Arizona Highlands

HighlandsARIZONA

Adventuring in Rim Country, White Mountains, Sedona, Flagstaff

: Spring feature

Wildflower chase:Writer offers tips to find that perfect flower patch —and lose the day.

Page 14: Sedona

Dancing with ghosts:Headless gods and dancing maidens etched into thewalls of ancient ruins hold clues to one of history’sgreat missing persons cases.

Page 18: Rim Country

Break out your fishing pole!A guide to Arizona’s most popular lakes — and15 rules to live your life by while we’re at it!

Page 22: Flagstaff region

Silent as death:Petrified Forest National Park holds clues toa lost world and The Great Dying.

Page 32: Cover

10 Great spring hikes:A first kiss, a lost brother, a huge blister — whatmakes the perfect hike?

Page 40: White Mountains

Life and loss:Writer seeks adventure and healing in sacredCibecue Canyon.

Page 46: Rim Country

A survivor:Tonto Natural Bridge State Park beats the odds andcontinues to amaze visitors to the world’s largesttravertine arch.

Page 50: White Mountains

Drive in the clouds:White Mountain Apache Reservation drive passesthrough clouds and history.

Page 54: Sedona region

Cool places:Savor the surprising charms of Cottonwood.

Tom Brossart

Bustin’ out all

ll over

10 Arizona Highlands

Rare enough to

treasure

Down in the desert where green is a rumor and purple and orange a hallucination, theanswers come early — in March and April.

Here in high country, the poppies of the Tonto Basin offer the first clue — followed bythe lupines and brown-eyed susans and heavy-headed sunflowers — blooming up the altitudecontours, moving with the temperature like cloud shadows. Then after the glory of spring,the monsoons roll through in late summer — producing another chance to get drunk on fra-grances designed for bees and moths. This spring it’s anyone’s guess as to what the highcountry will offer.

Perfect wildflower years come if steady rains start in September and November and keepup without big gaps all the way into spring — hopefully right after another good year that leftlots of flower seeds hidden in the thirsty soil.

But the freakish fits and starts of the past 12 months make it a pollinated crap shootwhen it comes to predicting the bloom. Last spring was decently damp, followed by a bonedry summer, a failed monsoon, a dry early winter and a brimming late winter.

Each spring, I careen through the state on a color binge, searching for orange slopes, pur-ple dunes and Technicolored canyons aflutter with butterflies. I creep about on my handsand knees clutching my macro lens, search for bony cholla skeletons sprouting poppies,

Story by Peter Aleshire

Photographs byTom Brossart

Spring trembles — lush and frail as a flower petal. Theflower addicts — Jeep drivers, bees, bats and flickers — waitanxiously for the flush of spring.

Will the rains suffice?Will the frost forebear?Will the sun allow?

and seek out color-drenched foregrounds to contrast withharsh granite backdrops. And so I have accumulated a treas-ure of hoarded memories of hypnotic afternoons sitting on ahillside, immobilized by a wildflower display.

So why do I feel this strange, lilting sense of satisfactionnot knowing what to expect? Maybe it’s because I know thatrepetition deadens even a gourmet’s tongue. The glimpse of acat barely arouses my interest, but the memory of the yelloweyes of the bobcat that watched me will thrill me the rest ofmy life.

Would we even notice wildflowers if they bloomedthroughout the year, so many weeds in the cracks of the side-walks?

Fortunately, the high country offers more reliable displaysthan the capricious low desert — since even in a bone dry year,Payson gets 10 or 12inches — more thanPhoenix can expect in awild, wet winter. TheTonto Basin usually deliv-ers an early fix — especiallyon the poppy gracedslopes near the ruins ofthe Tonto National Monu-ment. The Apache Trailand Peralta Road off High-way 60 offers the best,close-by display of bothhillsides of poppies andthe reliable displays of cacti.

The high country offers scattered early treasures and morereliable delights in June, July and August — in years when themonsoons don’t fail us.

These summer downpours spawn a straggling of late sum-mer blooms throughout the low deserts, especially in South-eastern Arizona in August.

But the variations merely underscore the remarkable ecol-ogy of wildflowers. Make no mistake: Flowers have conqueredthe world. Flowers evolved more than a hundred million yearsago as an ingenious way for plants to con insects into mixingtheir DNA. Scents ranging from perfume to rotted meat ad-vertise nectar often spiked with vitamins essential to preferredpollinators.

Color remains the most noticeable come-on, designed notfor human eyes but for the specialized vision of certain polli-nators, ranging into the ultraviolet. The flowers preferred bythe workhorse bees mostly blossom yellow. Flowers that settheir lures for hummingbirds prefer a lascivious red to brag ona large reward of nectar.

Often the shapes of such hummingbird flowers deny ac-cess to bees and other insects, so only hummingbirds willspread the pollen to other red blossoms. Smart move on theplant’s part, since a ravenous hummingbird may visit 10,000blossoms daily.

These innovations worked beautifully. Pollinators helped

A single

hummingbird

may visit

10,000 flowers

in a single day

11Arizona Highlands


The picturesque view from atop Bear Mountain Trail is worth all of the grunts and groans.

spread plants across the continents. All the rest of us followed happily along in their wake.Botanists have lavished lifetimes on understanding the vagaries of wildflowers, which

have evolved oversized seeds that can lie in the soil for decades awaiting that perfect combina-tion of rain and sun.

But despite all the studies and rain gauges, wildflowers remain irredeemably capricious. Ahillside covered with poppies one year may remain barren the next. One slope maysing with brittlebush, while a similarly facing incline nearby remains silently forlorn.

That unpredictability plays havoc with the creatures that depend on flowers.Tiny hummingbirds undertake continent-spanning migrations to remain on the edgeof spring as it shifts from the tropics to the pine-scented northern forests. Bees de-pend on their stash of nectar and pollen to make the honey they need to survive win-ter. Moths and butterflies synchronize their metamorphosis to these seasonaldisplays.

The other plant eaters also respond. Elk, deer and javelina all have preferred flo-ral delicacies, drawing enough extra energy from certain plants during certain yearsto increase their reproduction. Quail orchestrate the number of eggs they lay eachyear by the Vitamin A content of the tender green springtime annuals.

The effects of the flowers touch everyone from the whirring hummingbirds tothe lurking mountain lions whose reproduction and survival remain linked to thepopulations of the flower eaters.

I know that others find powdered truths in these waiving stems as well. During one re-cent Kodachrome scurry through spring, I encountered a young woman, perched on a

13Arizona Highlands

boulder in a sea of color at the bottom of the SuperstitionMountains, balanced painfully on the turning point ofher life.

The brittlebush staged a riot inyellow all around her, lapping likewaves at her boulder and stretchingwithout a break to the base of thegnarled volcanic mountains. Beeshummed incessantly among theVan Gogh-ish extravagance of cad-mium yellow, frantically pollinatingbushes each of which can produce800 flowers and 50,000 seeds.

She hadn’t known about theflowers when she set out in confu-sion from Los Angeles, a youngwoman seeking some trace of her-self amidst the punched timeclocks, quarreling parents, a floun-dering marriage, blunted expecta-tions, and unanswered questions.She fled the city with no real plan, but here on her ig-neous island the puzzle boxes of her life seemed for themoment of less consequence than the hypnotic hummingof the bees.

We sat mostly in silence, soaking in some inexpress-ible truth about wildflowers, as though waiting for the

filming of The Wizard of Oz to resume. The brittlebushglowed as we watched the red-orange globemallow closefor the night. I didn’t have much helpful advice to offer

about the interlocked dilemmas ofher life. Sometimes, I think I knoweven less about people than I doabout flowers.

Instead, we just sat and watchedthe flowers swaying in the breezewhile the horizon to the westflamed out in a glow the exact colorof globemallow. Then we pickedour way through the bushes to thetrail, a barely clear path through themass of yellow.

I wished her luck. She said shefigured things would work out, oneway or another. She looked almosthappy. Life’s like that, unpre-dictable and as full of promise as aslope seeded with wildflowers.

That night at home, I looked down to find my jeanssmudged with yellow pollen, as though I’d brushedagainst the palette in a mad painter’s studio.

I stood for a while in my bedroom in the glow of arti-ficial light, holding my pollen-stained jeans, recalling thesound of bees.

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• Hiking and Mountain Biking Trails

• Campgrounds

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• Green Valley Park

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14 Arizona HighlandsTwo children stand in a room within Palatki.

The Grottoat Palatkifeatures avariety ofrock art. Palatki, aHopi wordmeaning“Red House,”harboredperhaps 50peoplebetween A.D.1100 and A.D.1300.

15Arizona Highlands

The ghosts dance here — hiding their secrets in plain sight.A space man. A horseman. Animal peo-

ple. Headless gods. Young girls all in a row.Grinning mountain lions in a tangle of tails.Bird men, holy men, happy families, dyingwarriors, leaping sheep, slithering snakes, hun-gry bears — invaders on horseback.

A thousand years of human history,prayer, mysticism and tragedy still dream inthe slanted sun in the 1,000-year-old ruins androck faces of Sedona. The nearby ruins atMontezuma’s Castle get most of the attention,since they’re an easy turn off the paved high-way. But a bit of a rattle on dirt roads canyield other treasures here — notably the re-markable rock drawings of Bar V Bar along-side Wet Beaver Creek and the mysterious, tumbled cliff faceruins of Palatki and Honanki.

The people who lived among these fabled buttes left theirmark, etched with reverence and artistry into the soft face ofrusted red rocks. These sandstones are in their turn remnants

of a vanished world, for they’re fossilized sand dunes that oncedrifted across an ancient sahara, until time,heat and pressure turned them into one of themost fabled landscapes on the planet — rustedred by the iron trapped among those fusedsand grains.

The rock art in Honanki, Palatki and VBar V includes marks made by almost everymajor group to pray and hunt and hope in theregion for the past 6,000 years.

Palatki, a Hopi word meaning “RedHouse,” harbored perhaps 50 people betweenA.D. 1100 and A.D. 1300 in two neighboringpueblos set into the cliff face. The site includeswhat looks like a ceremonial Kiva and a sec-ond-story addition.

The larger, nearby Honanki, a Hopi word meaning “BearHouse,” has 60 rooms, which people occupied in that sameperiod. Tree ring dating on one log used in a doorway sets afirm date of 1271. The first archaeologist who studied theruins theorized that people fleeing volcanic eruptions near

A dance of mysteryThe headless gods and dancing maidens

etched into the walls of Sedona’s ancient ruinshold clues to one of history’s great missing persons cases

Story byPeter Aleshire

Photographsby Tom Brossart

Flagstaff settled first in the Verde Valley, but then movedto Honanki during a warm, wet period between A.D.1050 and A.D. 1150.

Finally, V Bar B close to Wet Beaver Creek off Inter-state 17 offers one of the most striking panels of rock artin the Southwest. Archaeologists have counted 1,032 pet-roglyphs, most etched very precisely with a pointed stonechisel. Unlike most rock art sites, almost none of the de-signs overlap and appear to have been almost all createdin what archaeologists have dubbed the Beaver CreekStyle. The huge wall includes unusual foot and pawprints, created with circular depressions in the rock. Someexperts have linked the site to shamanism and believe theintricately decorated rock wall may have played a key rolein religious and healing ceremonies.

Taken together, the three sites offer an absorbingglimpse into a lost world.

Here, archaeologists can trace the rakes, dots andsquiggles left by Archaic cultures, who hunted big gamewith stone-tipped spears and left little trace.

Here dance the mysterious geometric symbols andplayful animals etched by the Sinagua, who tended theirirrigated fields for perhaps a thousand years. They paintedon the rock with white kaolin clay, red pulverizedhematite, powdered yellow limonite, all turned into paintby mixing them into blood and fruit juice. The Sinagualived in small family groups in simple pit houses scatteredthrough the area and along Oak Creek for centuries, be-fore they decided to build these great, fortress cliff houses— often near sites where people had been leaving theirperhaps sacred marks for thousands of years. No oneknows what these symbols really meant — nor why theSinagua suddenly vanished into the mist.

But close along behind them came the Yavapai,speaking a language closely related to the tongue of othergroups living along the Colorado River. The Yavapaiadded their mark — extravagant figures vividly rendered incharcoal. Those figures include Spaniards on horseback,the world killers who signaled the end of all that hadgone before.

The rock art and the silent ruins all hold perplexingclues to an ancient life way — and the enduring mystery ofthe collapse of a civilization that had persisted throughdrought, flood, and change for 1,000 years.

The Sinagua occupied a strategic crossroads betweenmuch larger civilizations. They lived alongside one of themost productive and reliable streams in the region at theecologically abundant margin between desert and forest.The mild climate allowed them to produce crops almostyear-round.

They took advantage of their position alongside trade

Honanki, a Hopi wordmeaning “Bear House,” has60 rooms, which peopleoccupied from A.D. 1100to A.D. 1300.


17Arizona Highlands

routes that connected far-flung civilizations. The Pueblo people inthe great urban centers of Chaco Canyon and New Mexico con-tributed turquoise and copper. The Anasazi or Ancestral Puebloeansto the north in Mesa Verde and other great settlements contributedpottery. The Hohokam in the Phoenix area contributed a great arrayof trade goods. The advanced civilizations like the Mayans to the farsouth in Mexico contributed parrots and intricate jewelry. TheSinagua, for their part, produced sturdy, functional earthenware pot-tery for their own use, but fed into the trade networks beautifullywoven cloth.

Living along such a trade route gave the Sinagua access to newideas and innovations. Archaeologists studying their ruins, garbageheaps and burials have found an exuberant mixture of cultural traits.The Sinagua pottery styles, burial practices, rock art, religious altars,construction practices, crops, irrigation techniques, astronomical sitesand settlement patterns all display an ingenuous mixture of ideas bor-rowed from other cultures and adapted to their needs.

The Verde River nurtured the core population of the SouthernSinagua, who gradually expanded their domain. They built their firststone cliff dwellings in the Sedona area after about A.D. 1125, as theyexpanded their base. By about A.D. 1300, they had occupied most ofthe good sites in the Verde Valley and Sedona areas, including Ho-nanki and Palatki.

Then it all came tumbling down. After 1,000 years of settlement, every surviving town emptied out

in the space of 100 years. This vanishing act coincided with similarcollapses throughout the Southwest.

Archaeologists have struggled to explain the great vanishing, in-voking warfare, a succession of droughts, over population that ex-hausted the vital supplemental wild resources of the region, religiouswars, debilitating wars of attrition between different groups or the ap-pearance of outside groups — like the Yavapai and Apache.

Of course, the Hopi living quietly on their great mesas to thenorth in the oldest continuously occupied settlement in North Amer-ica see no mystery.

As far as the Hopi are concerned, they are the Sinagua. The ori-gin myths of several Hopi clans trace their origins to people who livedin the Sedona area and moved north to join the people already livingon the Hopi Mesas in the 1400s. The Hopi have a rich and ancientculture, with intricate ceremonies and a complex theology. ManyHopi elders recognize in the rock art of V Bar V, Honanki andPalatki enduring religious and cultural symbols.

Nor do the Hopi invoke some regional war to explain the col-lapse of the great cities of their ancestors.

They believe that after their ancestors escaped the destruction ofthe Third World by a Creator disgusted with human irreverence, theyemerged into this world near the Hopi Mesas. They spread out allover the world, looking for an easier place to live. But when theyfound such easy places, they invariably neglected their prayers and sofell to quarreling.

Finally, they concluded that only in a place as hard as the HopiMesas could they remember their blessings and stick to their prayers.So they all came back — leaving easy places like Sedona for thosehigh, windswept mesas.

So you pick — drought, war, famine, or neglected prayers.Whatever the theory, you’ll find the clues dancing on the walls

of Palatki and Honanki, gleeful and strange and forever mysterious.

PRACTICALITIESHonankiDirections: From Sedona take 89A south from the “Y”half a mile to mile marker 365. Turn right onto dirt, For-est Road 525. Go 10.2 miles to Honanki Heritage Siteand the parking lot.Hours: Open seven days a week 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

PalatkiFacilities: Visitor center and bookstore, toilets, water. Directions: Take Hwy. 89A through West Sedona. Con-tinue five miles past traffic light past mile marker 365.Turn right onto Forest Road 525, continue five miles.When FR 525 bears left, continue straight ahead ontoForest Road 795. Continue two miles to Palatki parkinglot.Reservations recommended: Call Palatki at(928) 282-3854.

V-Bar-V Heritage SiteDirections: V-Bar-V Heritage Site is located 2.8 mileseast of the junction of I-17 and SR 179 (FR 618).Watch for the entrance on your right less than one-halfmile past the Beaver Creek Campground.Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.

19Arizona Highlands

Rim lakes yield a perfect day

for fishing or just thinking

Rim lakes can accommodate small boats for trolling.Previous page: Bank fishing at Willow Springs Lake isa popular activity.


Story by Peter AleshirePhotos by Tom Brossart

Isat in the middle of the wild, upper reaches ofthe East Verde River, a poorer man, but dis-tinctly wiser. Somewhere overhead in the wav-ing leaves of the willow tree, my delicatelyhand-crafted, $2.75 Caddis pattern fly clung to

the willow branch. Somewhere downstream, the tip of myexquisitely engineered, 7.5-foot-long, graphite composite flyrod bumped along the bottom having separated itself fromthe rest of my $185 fly rod in the instant before I sat so un-ceremoniously in the middle of the middling stream. Witha gurgle, and a seep, and a slosh, the merrily burblingsnowmelt swirled over my waist and filled my ever-so-cleverly constructed $95 waders. And as I sat and ponderedthe way of the world, a chilling breeze riffled through myhair, since I had also lost my $18, ever-so-rustic, fisherman’shat — complete with the four $2.25 flies stuck in the foamfly-holder stitched into the brim of my ever-so-absent hat.

The water wobbled.

The wind whispered. The willows waved.And I decided that I’d approached fly-fishing with in-

adequate intellectual preparation.Seized by some formless, irrational, middle-aged yearn-

ing, I’d merely dabbled last year — brandishing a rented poleand a touching but naive enthusiasm for running water andgrassy, undercut banks. Inspired by a sheer, overwhelming,Zennisity of it all — and egged on by a single, singularly care-less trout — I’d invested heavily in the sport: I read books,maxed out two credit cards, pored over diagrams, andbought up whole shelves of topo maps.

So I came to this second Rubicon, beautifully outfitted,intensively educated, and boundlessly enthusiastic. Andcame so soon to sit — mumbling mindlessly in the midst ofthis middling stream.

And I sat. And I sat. And I sat. Until I divined the cause of my failure. Clearly, I had

not come up with a clear, concise, infallible set of rules bywhich one can systematize the fly-fishing experience.

In that spirit, I now offer you 15 simple rules to guar-antee a successful fly-fishing experience, pearls wrestledfrom the tightly clamped shell of experience.

1. Don’t read any books on fly-fishing until you so lovefishing you can endure the irritation of expert advice.

Writer spends a small fortuneseeking wisdom, trout and the Zenof unfurling fly line to bring back the 15-point secret of life

21Arizona Highlands

2. Don’t believe anyone who tells you how trout think.Wait for a book actually written by a trout.

3. Swim a few feet in their fins: Lie on the bottom of astream behind a big rock and watch for insects drifting to-ward you overhead. Do they look like your flies?

4. Remember they have brains the size of a walnut. Youcan do this, dude.

5. Think like a nymph. No, not that kind of nymph. Abug that lives underwater.

6. Tie on your flies by day — then tie one on at night.7. You will always select the right line weight if you ad-

here to this simple formula: Measure the length of yourpole. Divide by the radius of your reel. Subtract the lengthof the backing. Add the weight of the fly. Multiply by two ifyou have a graphite pole and by .345 if you have a fiberglasspole. Then ask the guy in the sporting goods store what hethinks. (If you have a bamboo pole, call Prince Charles andask what he thinks.)

8. Drain the stream before fishing. Survey the bottomand locate any likely trout hiding places. Mark these spots,then let the water back in.

9. Befriend a fish biologist. Get them to let you borrowthe electric shocker thingy they use to stun fish. Tell yourfriends you used an upstream presentation.

10. Give catfish fishermen the respect they deserve.

After all, they generally sit around under the stars withcheap equipment drinking beer. Fly-fishermen spend hun-dreds of dollars to wade up and down slippery streambedsbrimming with snowmelt. Who’s smarter?

11. Practice good trout stream etiquette. Always goaround another fisherman’s spot; don’t scare away his troutby making a lot of noise. Never tell another fisherman whohas just caught a fish that yours is bigger than his.

12. When telling trout stories, inflate the length of thefish you caught by 30 percent. When listening to trout sto-ries, reduce the length of the trout he caught by 50 percent.

13. Spend your first hour on the stream observing thewater, studying the insects, memorizing the sound of thestream. If you do this properly, you can skip the actual fish-ing part. Tell your friends you caught a Zen trout.

14. Always, always, clean the fish slime off your handsbefore embracing your spouse.

15. Reconsider. The ability to change your mind is asign of intelligence. Get a cheap spin casting rig — go to BearCanyon Lake (or Willow Springs — any of those perfectlyfine Rim lakes, rent a little boat, bring a cooler of beer —dangle cheese balls or worms or something artless and cheapover the side. Catch your limit. Tell your wife you caughtthem in a wilderness area after a bruising 12-mile hike.(Don’t forget to wash your hands.)

P YSOA N

A Z

85541

Having the time of mylife on the banks ofTonto Creek ... wishyou were here!!

RESERVATIONS: 800-521-3131East Highway 260, Payson, AZ 85541 • (928) 478-4211 • www.ilxresorts.com


Rim Fishing GuideFor information on current conditions, check the Arizona Game andFish Department’s fishing guide, updated regularly on the Web orcall the Black Mesa Ranger District office at (928) 535-7300 for upto date information about road conditions.

CHEVELON LAKE: Accessible only after the snow melts and theroads dry out, this remote lake is protected from fishing pressure bya bumpy drive on a dirt road and a steep hike down to the deep,narrow lake. Lots of big, over-wintering fish, but not as manystocked catchables. In the early spring, look for good fishing at theinflows and also in the creek below the dam.

BEAR CANYON LAKE: One of the most popular lakes in Arizona. Getthere early after the roads re-open off Forest Road 300 to take ad-vantage of the hungry, over-wintering trout — plus the plentifulweekly stocking.

BLACK CANYON LAKE: Another popular lake that gets heavy use allsummer, so get there ahead of the crowds as soon as the roads re-open.

WILLOW SPRINGS LAKE: Probably the second-busiest lake in Ari-zona — after Woods Canyon. Forest Road 149 reopens after thesnow melts off. Game and Fish stocks the lake heavily all springand summer.

WOODS CANYON LAKE: The marina store here sells more fishing li-censes than any other outlet in Arizona. The lake freezes in the win-ter, which means the big, over-wintering trout are hungry in theearly spring. Game and Fish stocks the lake heavily with trout allsummer.

DirectionsTake Highway 260 east from Payson 30 miles to where Forest Road300 crosses the highway.

If you go left onto FR 300, you will pass Woods Canyon Lake, BearCanyon Lake, Knoll Lake and several other small lakes for about 35miles before rejoining the pavement at Highway 87 by Pine andStrawberry.

Banner Health Center117 E. Main St., Suite A100 • Payson Professional Plaza(928) 474-1714 or (928) 474-5259 • www.BannerHealth.com

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23Arizona Highlands


The eerily cracked,eroded, wind-swept land-scape of the 94,000-acrePetrified Forest NationalPark at first seems hushedand tragic — the opencoffin of a dead earth.

But that’s an illusion.In truth, all the world

waits on display here —the evolution of a planet,the pulse of life, the slideinto extinction.

This vivid red, blue and purplelandscape is strewn with the fossilizedbones of a vanished world. It holds toits aching and angular heart the historyof the world — triumphs and tragedy,death and rebirth.

It’s silent as a murder scene, with afamous corpse and an absorbing scatterof clues that connect to the death of stars,the jostling of continents, the shifts ofglobal climate, the shock of mass extinc-tions and the magic of silicon.

This other-worldly landscape con-tains perhaps the largest concentration ofpetrified wood on the planet — the fos-silized remains of 220-million-year-oldtrees that once towered 200 feet tall.

As a result, these eroded, Techni-color hills made of ancient stream andlake-bottom sediments contain a pricelesssampling of the strange life forms thatflourished in the long, warm space be-tween two of the planet’s most devastat-ing mass extinctions.

The remarkable geology of the parkhas protected that precious trove of earthhistory. The great tree trunks, dying

Silent as a murder sStrewn w

25Arizona Highlands

Story by Peter Aleshire

Photographs by Tom Brossart

r scenen with clues


dinosaurs, terrifying crocodiles and vanished monsters all intheir turn toppled into streams and lakes. Rivers deliveredthem to the lowlands in great flood events, heaping the greattrees into pick-up-stix piles, stripped of bark and branches.Here, slurries of mud and silt covered them, protected themfrom decay, then buried them deep.

Safe from bacteria in their earthen tombs, the transforma-tion began. Silicon dissolved from volcanic ash begun infiltrat-

ing the once living tissue — replacing flesh and wood with glit-tering stone, preserving spores, skin, cell walls and a thousandother details.

Chalk it up to one more miracle of silica, the most com-mon element in the crust of the earth. Silica combines readilywith oxygen to form the amazingly useful silicon dioxide, nec-essary for making glass, computer chips, porcelain and even ce-ment. As it seeped into the hollows and microscopic spaces in

PetrifiedForest

NationalPark bears

witness to alost worldlost in theshadow of

a mass extinction

27Arizona Highlands

the buried trees, the silicon crystallized into six-sided quartzcrystals, tinged brilliantly with minerals. Iron provided muchof the color — sometimes purple, sometimes rusted red. Iron isso dense and indestructible it can be forged only in the innercore of a great star — which must explode in fury to scatter theiron out into the universe.

These trace minerals tinted both the crystallized logs andthe hills and rocks themselves. Those mineral traces created

the extravagant coloredlayers of the crumblingChinle Formation,which covers the park.Layers buried quick anddeep — far from the cor-rosive reach of oxygen –turned blue and purplethanks to that touch ofiron and manganese.Layers buried, then un-covered, rusted, thenburied again turned redand yellow.

As a final mastertouch, the geologicallandscape of this vividtableau threw in layers ofclay laced with bentonite,a mineral produced byvolcanic ash that can ab-sorb up to seven times its

own volume in water. The remarkable property gives ben-tonite an array of applications — but it also causes soil to ruth-lessly expand and contract. In the Petrified Forest, that hascracked the surface of the soil like an elephant’s hide — andprevents plant roots from gaining a hold. As a result, the land-scape is textured, eroded and naked — exposing all its hoardedsecrets.

As extinctions rolled across the globe and Pangea broke


Trace elementslike iron andmanganese

account for thevivid colors of

the Chinle Formation.

Siltstones andmudstones

buried deepturned purple

and blue,sediments

exposed tooxygen turnedred — like the

chunk of rock inthe foreground.

up starting some 200 million years ago, the forest of the monu-ment sank under a great weight of mud and stone. Soon,North America had shifted to its present position. As the Col-orado Plateau began its mind-numbing uplift to create theRocky Mountains, erosion stripped away nearly 200 millionyears of accumulated sediment.

Eventually, the long-hidden Chinle Formation with itstreasure trove of fossils broke the surface, like the breaching ofa vanished sea monster. The great heaving fractured the gigan-tic logs — snapping them so neatly it looked as if some de-mented lumberjack with a diamond saw had cut them in afrenzy.

Most of the trees were an extinct conifer-like relativedubbed Araucarioxylon Arizonicum. However, scientists haveidentified seven species of trees and 200 other species ofplants, all now as strange and fanciful as the trees of Avatar.

Those fossils bear witness to the diversity and persistence

of life, which has been forced to repeatedly start almost freshin the violent history of the planet.

These bizarre and varied survivors whose stories are pre-served in siltstone and bentonite represented a wonderful di-versity of forms, all creeping through the swamps, dunes andthick forests of the supercontinent Pangea, which straddled theequator.

The assembly of that supercontinent accompanied by ti-tanic volcanic outpourings perhaps played a role in the mostterrible of the planet’s known mass extinctions, which markedthe boundary between the long, quiet Permian and the variedand violent Triassic. In that still-mysterious 250-million-year-old holocaust more than 96 percent of the earth’s marinespecies vanished, along with 70 percent of the land-dwellers.The cataclysm spared neither plants nor insects, both of whichremained relatively untouched by other mass extinctions.

No one knows what triggered the “great dying,” which

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PRACTICALITIES

About 259 miles from Phoenix or215 miles from Payson, the roadthrough the Petrified Forest con-nects Highway 180 and Inter-state 40. You’ll pay a $10 per-carentrance fee. Hours are 7 a.m. to6 p.m.

Lodging: Lots of low-cost hotelrooms in nearby Holbrook, withits funky collection of rock, fossiland curio shops. You can alsostay at La Posada in nearbyWinslow, designed by MaryColter and now serving gourmetmeals in a historic setting.

Cool and Close: The privatelyrun Meteor Crater offers a look atthe planet’s best-preserved as-teroid impact crater.

came in waves several million years apart. Massive volcanic eruptions perhaps re-leased carbon dioxide and sea bottom methane deposits — causing global warmingand changes in the chemistry of the ocean. Creatures with shells and simple circula-tory systems fared worse than creatures that didn’t need to glean calcium from thewater. Asteroid impacts may have contributed. So perhaps did changes in global cli-mate due to the shift of all the land masses to the equator, which changed globalcurrents in both the ocean and the atmosphere. Some experts point to tantalizingevidence of a strange proliferation of certain types of fungus. Many suspect a pilingon of changes until whole interconnected ecosystems collapsed.

In any case, that extinction nearly wiped clean life’s slate. So few creatures sur-vived the disaster that it created a 30-million-year-long gap in coal deposits world-wide. However, that great dying also prepared the way for the evolution of the plantsand animals whose fossilized remains are laid bare at the Petrified Forest today.

Here, ruled 40-foot-long crocodile-like Phytosaurs, gobbling up both fish andcreatures as they stopped at the shore for a drink.

They preyed sometimes on 15-foot-long, plant-eating reptiles called aetosaurs,with their tiny heads, pig-like snouts and great, armored spikes.

Sometimes, they also snapped up 9-foot-long therapsids, reptiles with almostmammalian cheek bones, canines, pelvises and spines.

Sometimes, those lurking phytosaurs no doubt nibbled on dragonflies andother insects the size of small dogs — the biggest insects in the history of the planet.

Of course, the phytosaurs, which comprise the most common fossilized bonesin the park, had to compete with other predators.

The 20-foot-long rauisuchians were the top land-based killers, quick, bent-overpredators with massive skulls, three-inch-long serrated teeth, long forearms and terri-ble appetites.

But other creatures lurked in the shadows and waited their chance — includingthe first dinosaurs, small, quick, bipedal predators about 8 feet long weighing aslight 50 pounds. They lived on scraps then, but their descendants would survivethe next mass extinction and rule the world for more than 150 million years.

Of course, their turn came as well — perhaps heralded by the devastating impactof a giant asteroid some 60 million years ago. And just as the dinosaurs rushed intothe gap left by the extinction of the archosaurs, therapsids, rauisuchians and phy-tosaurs, so we mammals crept out of the shadow of the vanished dinosaurs.

Ironically enough, at just about the moment an asteroid splashed down in theGulf of Mexico to draw a curtain of dust and fire down on the dinosaurs, a shift inthe crust of the earth began the long process of exhuming that long, forgotten for-est.

Now those logs of stone, fossilized tracks of 70-pound lung fish, serrated teethlong as knife blades and crocodile jawbones the length of minivans all lie glitteringin the cracked, pastel soil, mute witness to the history of the earth.

And we warm-blooded heirs of the dinosaurs wander through the fine-graineddrifts of time, frail and amazed.

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31Arizona Highlands

10 Great Hikes:

Writer sets out on quest to define the perfect hike


I can never walk past the Kolb Studio at the GrandCanyon without stopping at the Bright Angel Trail sign andrecalling that day four years ago and thinking about the hikethat I thought had cost me my brother.

I shift my vantage point from the Yavapai Point and Ob-servation Station, trying to pinpoint the location of theKaibab suspension bridge hanging over the Colorado River.I remembered the day, vivid and stinging as the salt of mysweat in my eyes.

We’d headed down the trail all together. But somehow,my brother got ahead. When we noticed him gone, we hur-ried to find him — but he was gone.

We searched for hours, hoping that he’d merely wan-dered ahead again — as he sometimes did. But this time, we

feared the depth of the canyon and the oppression of theheat.

We finally reached that suspension bridge, full of fear.There sat the pile of bananas he’d insisted on packing —

and relief flooded over us.We eventually found him safe on the other side of the

bridge, resting comfortably with other hikers.It was a frightening day — and yet, I’ll recall that hike and

the depth of the canyon and the roar of the river and theblessed sight of those yellow bananas the rest of my life.

So what then makes the perfect hike? Everyone has a dif-ferent answer.

Some seek solitude, others challenge and still othersbeauty. Some just want to make it back to their car in onepiece.

Like so many other wanderlust hikers, I have had my fairshare of less-than-perfect situations — from empty canteensto blisters so big I vowed to swear off walking.

But then I recall the bubbling stream in Sedona, a wa-terfall in the White Mountains, a cinder cone near Flagstaff,a sunset viewed from a perch on the Mogollon Rim — andthe sweat, blisters and dry throat all fade.

In this article, we lay out 10 of the best hikes to take dur-ing spring — classic treks you mustn’t miss.

While some of the hikes are easy and fun, like the RimVista Trail in the Rim Country, others will challenge you togo beyond your natural limits, like the Hermit Trail at theGrand Canyon.

Doesn’t it seem that the hard trails are the ones that stickwith you — even if you don’t misplace your brother?

A parched throat.Dizzy exhaustion.A flush of fear.A long kiss.All that came flooding back to meas I gazed down into the GrandCanyon, on this perhaps impossi-ble quest for the perfect hike.

Story by Alexis Bechman — Photographs by Tom Brossart

35Arizona Highlands

Maybe that is why the GrandCanyon always ends up at the top ofmy list.

Dropping several thousand feetin just half a mile, the canyon putsany hiker to the test. In Arizona, how-ever, the canyon is not the only placepushing adventurers past their limit.

As a reporter, I have writtenmore stories about lost or dehydratedhikers on the Hell’s Gate Trail (lo-cated 11 miles east of Payson) in thelast year than any other trail. From itssteep decent, lack of shade and over-all toughness, this trail has takendown single hikers and whole BoyScout troops.

The highlands of Arizona haveso many other hikes worthy of astroll. From Sedona’s view of the redrocks to the White Mountains’ soar-ing trees, to Flagstaff’s mountainsand the Rim Country’s pristineforests — the area offers somethingfor everyone.

But what all those place have in common is their abilityto provoke memories.

Need to remember the tale? Travel back to the place, stopfor a minute and let the tales unfold in your memory. Like vis-iting an old friend, the story unveils itself in surprising ways,from a scraggly tree that offered you support when youthought you couldn’t make it around one more switchbackto a curve in the trail where you saw a deer — the trail be-

comes a scrapbook holding thingsyou thought you had forgotten.

So here I stand, once again, onthe edge of a gash in the earth 2 bil-lion years deep, already full of mymemories.

I’m standing under the bell atHermit Rest, I remember posing mymother under the same bell severalyears earlier.

But my mind slides past mymother as I look down that trail.

Several miles down, waits ascraggly tree in a small clearing. Be-neath that spindly tree on a forever-remembered hike, I once sharedwhat I can only describe as an elec-trifying kiss.

Now, that was a perfect hike —but then, that’s another story.

Suffice to say that our memoriesmake the perfect hiking companions— and all that it requires to make aperfect hike is to make anothermemory that will hike with the

throng in my mind on all the trails that await.So while you can offer suggestions of what makes up the

perfect hike; views, difficulty, flowers, wildlife, etc., it’s reallyany hike that creates a memory.

So, take a hike, and create your own scrapbook. But I’ve got to be off now. The memory of that kiss awaits me, down in the layered

heart of the earth.

Above — The view toward Red Mountain at sundown. Below — The aspens surround the Lockett Meadow Trail in the fall.


Great HikesGRAND CANYONThe South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park lies about 218miles north of Phoenix, 200 miles northwest of Payson and 80miles northwest of Flagstaff.Most visitors prefer to drive to the park.From Phoenix, travel north on Interstate 17 to Flagstaff, thentake Interstate 40 west toward Williams/Grand Canyon. It shouldtake around four hours to get to the park and another half anhour to find parking near the canyon and start hiking.

1) Rim TrailThe Rim Trail extends from Pipe Creek Vista west to Hermits Rest, adistance of approximately 12 miles, most of which is paved. The trailis conveniently reached from any viewpoint and a free shuttle bus willeven return you to your car if you decide to stop along the way.

2) Hermit TrailTo reach the Hermit Trailhead, hop on a Hermits Rest Route shuttle busand take it to the end of the line. Exit the bus and head toward theHermits Rest store and snack bar. The trailhead is located west 500feet behind the store.The trail makes its way to three locations — Waldron Basin, SantaMaria Spring and Dripping Springs. You can also take the trail to theColorado River. The trail is steep and the National Park Service recom-mends only experienced desert hikers use it. To reach Waldron Basin,

expect to spend two to four hours in the canyon and descend 1,240feet.

SEDONA

3) Margs Draw TrailThe easiest thing about this 2-mile hike is the trek itself. The hardestpart is deciding where you want to start. You can pick the in-town trailup from three locations — the Broken Arrow trailhead, the SombartLane trailhead and the Schnebly Hill trailhead. Accessible year-round,this two-hour hike is best enjoyed in the spring.To access the trail at the south end, head down Morgan Road, which is1.4 miles south of the State Routes 179 and 89A roundabout. Go 0.6miles down Morgan Road until you reach the end of the pavement

Rim TrailHermit Trail

Bell Rock to Courthouse Butte Trail

Arizona Highlands

where the trailhead is 80 yards ahead. For the north end of the trail, head south at the State Routes 179and 89A roundabout for 0.3 miles and turn left on Schnebly HillRoad. Go 0.8 miles until you reach the turnoff for the Margs andHuckaby trails.The middle trailhead is at the end of Sombart Lane on the left.Again, head south at the State Routes 179 and 89A roundaboutfor 0.7 miles until you reach Sombart Lane. Follow SombartLane 0.1 miles to the trailhead.

4) Bell Rock PathwayThis 3.5-mile mostly smooth and flat trail links the Village ofOak Creek with Sedona. The trail is a great place to walk ormountain bike with a group of people because in most places itis wide. Around Bell Rock, the trail gets rocky and slightlysteeper. Allow a few hours to hike this trail, which offers awe-some views of Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte. To access thepathway, head south at the State Routes 179 and 89A round-about, taking 179 3.6 miles to a paved turnout on the east sideof the roadway.

5) Courthouse Butte LoopAccessing the Courthouse Butte Loop is easy if you are alreadyon the Bell Rock Pathway since the loop picks up where thepathway ends. If you are not already on the pathway, accessingthe trail is equally easy. From the State Routes 179 and 89Aroundabout, head south 6.5 miles to a roadway on the east sideof the roadway for the Bell Rock Vista.At the kiosk, head toward Bell Rock until you reach a signed in-tersection for the Courthouse Butte Loop where you can con-tinue on the trail clockwise or counterclockwise depending onyour preference. Either way, the trail gently circles Bell Rock dip-ping and curving 4.2 miles around until the trail reconnects withthe pathway. Large cairns mark the unshaded trail for most of the way.Allow 2.5 hours to make the loop around Bell Rock. If you are in goodshape, you can even amble up Bell Rock to get a better view of thesurrounding valley.

Margs DrawTrailhead

Bell Rock TrailheadA hiker stops and admires the surroundings

off the Bell Rock Pathway trail in Sedona.

A couple hike Margs Draw Trail. This almost forgotten trailhas excellent red rock views and is a fairly easy 2-milehike into the backcountry.

37

RIM COUNTRY

6) Rim Vista TrailWith large sections paved, the Rim Vista Trail may not be thehardest trail, but could be one of the most scenic. This 4-mileroundtrip trail hugs the side of the Mogollon Rim offeringbreathtaking vista views of the valley below, which holds theworld’s largest ponderosa pine forest. The hike is great atsunset as there are plenty of places to stop and rest on rockyoutcrops, just be careful not to get too close to the edge. To access the trail, from Payson head east on Highway 260until you reach the top of the Rim, where you turn left on For-est Road 300 (Woods Canyon Lake Road). Park in a parkingarea just off to the right and the trail is an easy amble to theRim. You can also access the trail from the second parkingarea a little over a mile down the road, which splits the trail.

7) Horton Creek TrailThis easy 7-mile roundtrip hike meanders through some ofthe Rim Country’s most beautiful scenery below the MogollonRim. For this reason, the trail is heavily used and most popu-lar during the spring and fall months. The trail starts at theupper Tonto Creek Campground and heads alongside HortonCreek. When you reach the end of the trail, look north for awaterfall flanked by foliage.To access the trail, from Payson head east on Highway 260for roughly 16 miles. Turn left at the Tonto Creek Fish Hatch-ery, which is just past the Kohl’s Ranch turnoff on the right.Head a mile up the road toward the hatchery until you reachtrailhead parking. The trail begins across the road from theparking lot in the campground.

WHITE MOUNTAINS

8) Mogollon Interpretive Trail8) (Rim Vista Trail)This popular self-guided interpretive trail is a favorite amongvisitors. While only a one-mile loop, the trail takes youthrough a forest of pinyon pine, juniper, oak, willow and man-zanita to the edge of the Mogollon Rim, offering stunning vis-tas.The trail is located off Highway 260 midway between ShowLow and Lakeside. Follow Highway 260 to the Lakeside

Rim Vista Trailhead

Horton CreekTrailhead

Red Mountain Trail


39Arizona Highlands

Ranger Station and continue heading north-west 3 miles. Look for the Mogollon RimTrail sign and trailhead parking just pastLions Camp Tatiyee.

FLAGSTAFF

9) Red MountainIf you are looking for stunning scenery andan easy hike, head north out of Flagstaff 25miles to Red Mountain. Red Mountain wasformed 740,000 years ago by an eruption.What remains is a 1,000-foot-high volcaniccinder cone and hoodoos all around. To access the trail from Flagstaff, headnorthwest on Highway 180, go 25 miles tomilepost 247, where a sign for the RedMountain Geologic Area is posted. Drive 0.3miles on a dirt road to the trailhead. RedMountain lies 1.25 miles or 30 minutes onan easy trail with a 300-foot elevation gain.

10) Inner Basin TrailWildflowers abound in the Inner Basin Trail. The trail starts in Lockett Meadow and makes its way to the Inner Basin of the San Francisco Peaks,where mountains surround you on all sides. The 6.9-mile roundtrip trail follows a primitive road and should take 3.5 hours to complete. To ac-cess the trail, drive northeast from Flagstaff on Highway 89 for about 12 miles. Turn left (west) onto Forest Road 552, which is just past the Sun-set Crater turnoff. Drive 1.5 miles, turn right at the Lockett Meadow sign and continue to the trailhead. This is considered a strenuous trail.

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Deathand fearon a

long rope

41Arizona Highlands

Gregg Henry — bull rider, firefighter, cowboy, canyoneer, guide, and full-bloodedCibecue Apache of the clan of Chief Diablo himself — stood nonchalantly on theedge of the sheer 80-foot drop alongside the thundering waterfall and looked at meexpectantly. I — middle-aged, stout, scratched, bruised and dressed in the turquoisesun shirt my father often wore before he died — licked my suddenly dry lips and

decided to beg Gregg to simply lower me down the cliff face like a quivering sack of mashed potatoes. I tried — my life stuttering in my throat. But I couldn’t do it. Not in front of Gregg — a stocky,

White Mountain Apache guide, fashioned from slabs of gran-ite — his eyes twinkling with mischief, adrenaline and the stun-ning beauty of Cibecue Canyon — the sacred, seldom-visited,waterfall-punctuated canyon through which we’d been wander-ing for three days. Gregg exuded an effortless, cheerful macho— running lightly along sloping cliff edges, boulder-hoppingwith a 50-pound pack, diving off cliff-tops into deep pools — with a shy smile always lurking just be-hind his eyes. Confronted with Gregg’s shrug of daring, how could I flinch?

Besides — I was wearing my father’s water shirt.But then, I’m getting ahead of myself. Best to start at the beginning. I have yearned to cast myself into the mysterious depths of Cibecue Canyon for years, for it is

rich in history and sacred to the Apache. Then I heard that the White Mountain Apache had de-cided to open up Cibecue Canyon to outsiders accompanied by an Apache guide. The canyon is soimportant culturally and spiritually, that it has been closed to outsiders for years. But now the tribehas decided to share the canyon, provided visitors hire a guide who can ensure their safety and re-spect for the canyon. The certified, professional guides generally charge $100 to $150 per person perday to take clients on back-country adventures. A seat on a Salt River rafting adventure costs about$90. Cultural tours of Fort Apache cost $8 per person. For $10 a day, you can get a permit to fish

Grief and adventure

mingle on a trek

through beauty and loss

under the care

of an Apache guide

in sacred Cibecue Canyon

Story and photographsby Peter Aleshire

Weary adventurers take a lunch break in an alcoveof rock cut by Cibecue Creek.


and explore open areas of the reservation, which are indicated on a map where you buy the per-mits — either at the store at the Salt River Bridge, Fort Apache, or in Whiteriver.

So I got hold of Gregg through the tribe’s Wildlife and Outdoor Recreation Division to setup the trip. He seemed unconcerned I had never done any technical rock climbing, so I decidedI wouldn’t worry either. He explained we would leave one jeep at the mouth of the canyon onthe banks of the Salt River and then drive up onto the reservation and down a dirt road beforehiking into the canyon. That would leave us most of three days to cover 10 or 12 miles — alldownhill. How hard could it be?

Packing in a predawn flurry, I was rooting through a basket of towels when I came across myDad’s blue-green sun shirt. Dad had died a short time before, after a shockingly quick descentinto helplessness down the slick slope of colon cancer. When I was young, he taught me tocamp and watch birds and love the wide, wild world. At the end, I nursed him when hecouldn’t roll over in the hospital bed the soft-spoken hospice people installed in the same bed-room where my mom had died of colon cancer the year before.

Years earlier, Dad had developed a mild form of skin cancer and so had bought a light,quick drying sun shirt for outdoor outings. After he died, I had claimed the shirt, as I’ve hadtwo malignant melanomas of my own. But somehow the shirt had disappeared — until the mo-ment of my hasty departure. So I swallowed hard, blinked back tears and stuffed the sun shirt inmy pack.

Dad died after a

shockinglyshort

descent down the

slick slopeof colon

cancer

Arizona Highlands

I met Gregg and Mowley, a low-key, soft-spokenApache guide in training, at the little store near theSalt River Bridge on Highway 60. We bought the$10-per-person daily permits, paid the guide fee,dropped my jeep, then headed north on Highway60. We took a thread-like dirt road to the brink ofthe canyon, shouldered our packs and hiked ondown an eroded road into the canyon bottom.

We hiked through intermittent rain spatters forabout two hours to a campsite alongside a rocky nar-rowing of limestone that created a 10-foot-high wa-terfall brimming over a broken slab of rock. Thatnight, we sat around a cheerful fire on the bank ofthe stream to joke, anticipate and trade bits andpieces of our life stories. Gregg eventually begansinging an Apache song he had learned from hisgrandfather as I stared up at the Milky Way and lis-tened to his strong, hypnotic, ancient voice.

The next day offered along slog through thestream, which had createda convoluted, brushy,smooth-rocked landscapeof intricate and unex-pected beauty. We hit ourfirst real waterfall — amodest affair involving a20-foot drop. Gregg brokeout the ropes.

“Just remember,” hesaid amiably, “you’ve gotto lean way back, so thatyou’re upright against therock. Let the rope out with your right hand — whichyou keep behind you.”

I started out all right, but couldn’t resist thetemptation to lean forward to step down onto alikely ledge. I ended up lowering myself instead ofcrab walking. But I neither whimpered nor pleadedopenly for my life, so I counted it as a success.

We spent the rest of the day stumbling down-stream — burdened by our packs and the need to in-flate a raft to get the expensive camera gear safelypast the frequent pools we couldn’t hike around.

At one point, Gregg pointed out a perfect blackbear track in the sometimes-deep mud along thebank. I felt an unaccountable chill. Black bears

I neitherwhimperednor pleaded

openly formy life, so I

counted it as a success

Cibecue Creek sculptsrocks near its junction withthe Salt River.

43


Dry bags in packs kept gear dry during frequent stretcheswhere swimming was the only way forward.

virtually never attack people, but the Apache rarelyhunt them because traditional beliefs suggest bears mayrepresent the spirits of the dead. I ran my hand acrossthe silky smoothness of my turquoise water shirt andfelt suddenly a great pang of loss, knowing how Dadwould have loved such a track in such a place.

We camped that night in a narrowing of the canyon.As the light faded, Gregg led us a little ways downstreamto look at the waterfall that awaited us in the morning.

The water ran across a terrace of limestone, creatinga medley of light and sound. The stream then plungedover a 15-foot-waterfall into a pool before gathering itselffor a lunatic lunge down a 60-foot drop into a furiouscorkscrew flume of limestone, like a roller coaster de-signed by a sadist for crazy people.

I stood stupefied on the cliff, wondering whether Icould find the nerve to spiderwalk down that cliff.

The memory of the sound of the water hurling itselfagainst the rock woke me in the middle of the night. Icrawled out of my sleeping bag and sat watching themoonlight move across the cliff-face. The stream wove meinto its spell as the moon set and the Milky Way emerged.One Apache myth suggests that the spirits of the deadmake their way to the next world along the path of theMilky Way. I don’t know anything about that, but I didnot feel alone in the darkness. Then I heard the inexpli-cable sound of drums braided into the noise of thestream. As soon as I focused on it, the sound vanished.But it returned later — for a few notes — a movement atthe corner of the eye.

The next morning I wandered down to the streamand found the fresh bear tracks in the mud 30 yards fromwhere I’d sat in the night. Water seeping out of the sod-den mud had pooled in the deep bottoms of the tracks.

So we headed to the waterfall, in fear and eagerness.Mercifully, Mowley went first, rappelling down the cliffand into the waterfall then gripping the rope tightly for acareen through the corkscrew to arrive safely on a broadledge at the bottom. He attached ropes to eye-hooks set inthe stone so Gregg could simply clip the ropes to myclimbing harness and lower me down the cliff and intothe water. I might drown, but I couldn’t fall.

Good thing, because I lost my footing as soon as thewater hit me. I tumbled, slipped and shouted “Hooah,hooah,” a habit I’d picked up from Gregg.

So we continued on down the canyon to the final wa-terfall — a sheer, 80-foot drop off the cliff-edge. I half ex-pected Gregg to clip me to the rope and lower me downthe cliff. Instead, he merely attached my clip to the rope.

“Remember,” he said — “lean back. Trust the rope.”“And don’t let go with my right hand,” I said.“Yep,” he said, with a sly grin. So I walked to the edge and looked down. This was a mistake. A serious mistake.I waited a moment for the thudding in my ears to sub-

side, turned my back to the cliff and walked backward. Leaning back against the screaming of my better judg-

ment, I waddled down the cliff — perfectly perpendicularand scared to death. Once fully committed to the rope, Irisked another look down — and was disconcerted by the

Arizona Highlands

dancing of the tip of the rope far below, which ended 15feet above the water.

My heart hammered, my legs trembled, my right handcontracted into a death grip. What had I been thinking?

I dangled and clenched and focused on the tumul-tuous rush of water down the cliff face. Somewhere inthere, the fear left me — shredding like the mist of the wa-terfall. For the great ache of a moment, I wished my fathercould have hung at the end of this rope, beneath the heart-piercing blue of the cloud-scudded sky. Then that greatbubble of loss burst, leaving me dizzy with joy — the lifeforce gleaming all around me, in the water and the rocksand the rush of the waterfall. The sun flared through the

clouds and I bounced on down the cliff. At the end of the rope, I swayed in space before finally

letting go of my grip and dropping into the deep, wet bene-diction of Cibecue Creek.

Gregg came down last, turning upside down above thewater before he forsook the rope with a great “hoooahing”and “haahahhing” — arms and legs flailing with the sheer,splayed rush of life.

So we shouldered our packs and hiked on down thecanyon, splashing through the creek that swirled aroundour legs like a prayer. And here and there in the soft redmud, I saw the tracks of an unseen bear who had gone onahead, as though to show us the way.

If You GoThe White Mountain Apache Reservation lies between Globe and Show Low along High-way 60. Many areas east of Highway 60 are open, but you need a $10 daily tribal permitto travel on dirt roads, fish or camp. Buy permits at the little store beside the Salt RiverBridge, at the Fort Apache Cultural Center, in Whiteriver or at stores and outlets scatteredthroughout the reservation. To hire a certified Apache guide, or contact Gregg Henry, callHon-Dah Ski and Outdoor Sports at (877) 226-4868.

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45

Driving into Tonto Natural

Bridge State Park the

terrain gives little hint of the

cavernous arch or steep

canyon that waits below

One bignaturalbridge

Story by Alexis BechmanPhotographs by Tom Brossart

Putting my hand to my eyes, I looked upthrough the glaring sun to a figure stand-ing high atop a hillside covered in looserock near the Tonto Natural Bridge.Around me, other visitors peered up andpointed, quite an odd sight since visitorsare usually pointing down and marveling

at the largest natural travertine bridge in the world. This wasthe fourth time I had visited the bridge and the first time I hadwitnessed such a strange sight. A young boy had climbed upthe hills, several hundred feet high for what appeared to be nogood reason.

Family and friends of the boy yelled at him to hurry upand come down, but the boy stood atop that mound staring atus for what felt like forever. He eventually made his haphazard

way down to where agroup of childrengreeted the boy withhigh fives and hugs. Thechildren were obviouslystunned and awed bytheir friend’s courageand stamina.

I can only imaginewhat it felt like to stand high atop that hill. I won’t venture toattempt the trek any time soon because of the slippery rocksand boulders that dot the formidable hillside, but it must havebeen thrilling.

How or why the boy went up there I will never know, butit got me thinking what it must have felt like to be one of thefirst explorers or Native Americans to come across the massivearch, which has been forming in the Pine Canyon for thou-sands of years.

A steep trail takes youdown to the creek whereyou can get a close up ofTonto Natural Bridge.

Opposite page: Waterconstantly flows off thetop of the bridge intoPine Creek.

47Arizona Highlands


Maybe prospector David Gowan stood and marveled atthe world’s largest natural travertine arch from atop the samehillside when he came upon the bridge in 1877.

The Park Service says on its Web site that Gowan first sawthe bridge while prospecting. Gowan made camp in the area,but Apaches soon came around and chased him (or so thestory goes). Seeking shelter, Gowan hid inside the great cavernPine Creek has dissolved through a solid wall of limestone. Bythe third day, Gowan felt safe enough to leave the protectionof the cave and decided to claim the area. More than twodecades later, Gowan’s nephew, David Gowan Goodfellow,brought his family over from Scotland and settled in the lushvalley that surrounds the bridge.

The Goodfellows reportedly had to use ropes to precari-ously lower their belongings down the 500-foot slopes intoPine Canyon.

Today, driving into the Tonto Natural Bridge State Park,the landscape gives little hint of the breathtaking bridge orsteep canyon that waits below. A smooth, open road flanked

by juniper quickly dips into a canyon, giving you your firsthint that you are traveling deep into the earth below.

I am always so excited to visit the bridge that I often forgetto slow down when I hit this curve, forcing me to brake fer-vently. But who can blame me for being so excited? The Good-fellows must have felt the same excitement and trepidationwhen they realized they would have to lower into the canyonusing ropes and mules.

At the bottom of the steep drive, awaits a beautiful valleytucked in among the hills. From the top above Pine Creek, Ialways pause to listen to the faint sound of water. It drips offhanging blackberries in a small cove off Waterfall Trail, flingsitself off moss hanging above the bridge and patters into shal-low pools below.

From my vantage point above the arch, it is evident thatwater is the creator and ruler of this place.

Geologists believe underground springs carrying calciumcarbonate deposited minerals over time creating a dam of sortsin the canyon. Eventually, the Pine Creek slowly chewed

through the travertine, hollowing outthe bridge, which is more than 400feet long and at some points 150 feetwide.

Ambling through the tunnel, itis impossible not to stop every fewsteps to stare up and marvel at thearch — it is also a good time to getyour balance. Since water flows overthe bridge nearly year-round. It is al-ways slippery under the roof withwater spray coating the rocks, creat-ing quite an obstacle course for visi-tors.

Remember to wear a good pairof shoes. I made the mistake of wear-ing sandals my first trip down andnearly twisted my ankle. Althoughpark rangers and volunteers areposted below, they won’t guide youthrough the arch, unless you ask.

While the bridge is quite a sight,don’t forget to look out over the val-ley, which houses trees, shrubs andcactus from pinyon to prickly pearand birds from woodpecker to wren.If you are lucky enough, you mighteven have a javelina cross your path.

Either way, the bridge is an awe-some place to reconnect with thepower of Mother Nature.

Getting thereThis park is open from 9a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursdaythrough Monday. FromPayson, head north on High-way 87 for 11 miles until youreach the turnoff for thepark on the left (west) sideof the highway. Head downForest Service Road 583until you reach the gate. Theentrance fee for adults (ages14-plus) is $5. For children(7-13) it is $2. For more in-formation, contact the parkat (928) 476-4202.

49Arizona Highlands

Water raining down fromatop the Tonto NaturalBridge creates its own rain-bow of color as it hits therocks below.


Strolling across the Fort Apache parade grounds, I anticipate myadventure and wonder why the Apache fought so desperately to hangonto what remains a remote, lightly populated wilderness. The 228-acre collection of Army barracks, school buildings and the newApache Cultural Center remain shadowed by ironies and so offersthe perfect preparation for my 90-mile drive through the heart of theWhite Mountain Apache Reservation, the ecological equivalent of aquick drive from Mexico to Canada.

The resourceful White Mountain Apache have now laid claim tothe fort once built to subjugate them, just as visionary leaders likeChief Alchesay learned to compromise and adapt to hold tenaciouslyonto this spectacular, 1.6-million-acre reservation. The sprawlingreservation includes the Salt River at 3,000 feet and Mt. Baldy at11,000, which remains the wettest place in Arizona. In order to holdonto their homes, the White Mountain leaders even proved willing toserve as scouts for the Army in the terrible war with Geronimo’s Chir-icahua Apache.

In part, that’s because they believed that their culture and moral-

Beauty

to die for

Story and photosby Peter Aleshire

Trek past sacred places onthe White Mountain

Apache Reservation andlearn why they fought so

hard to hang on

ity depended on an intimate connection with the landwhere every bend of the stream had a sacred name and astory that helped parents teach children right behavior, as sobeautifully described in Keith Basso’s “Wisdom Sits inPlaces.” The Apache believe the land’s spirit can impart wis-dom if you pay attention.

Now the White Mountain Apache Reservation harborsjust 11,000 people and some of the most remote, pristineand diverse wilderness in Arizona, including a splashing tu-mult of streams that nurture the Apache trout — broughtback from the brink of extinction by the tribe and Arizona Game and Fish Department.

My journey of discovery started with the purchase of a fishing permit at the Tribal Game and Fish Office at the inter-section of Fatco Road and Highway 73, next to the White Mountain Apache Motel and Restaurant — the only motel in2,500-resident Whiteriver. You need a permit anytime you leave the paved road on the reservation. Then I headed southon Highway 73 to Y-55, the turnoff to Fort Apache.

After leaving the fort, the road rises steadily from the juniper grasslands around Whiteriver. The pavement continuesfor 12 miles, past scattered homes along the East Fork of the White River. Soon after the pavement ends, the road forks. Iinitially explored R30, the northern fork that runs for a mile along Deep Creek, a soul-soothing stream too shallow to har-bor hope of trout. I savor the stream, but turn back once the road climbs up from the creek toward Christmas Tree Lake,where you can catch 20-inch Apache trout for a $25-a-day fishing permit.

Back on Y-55, I climb steadily up the mountain, marveling at the riotous mix of vegetation. The forest crowds the roadwith oaks, ash, walnut and cottonwoods, augmented by golden, old-growth ponderosa pines. Soon, seductively white-

51Arizona Highlands

Reservation Drive climbs from3,000 feet to 8,000 feet, passingstreams and ridges covered withspruce along the way.


My natural aura repels fish.No matter. I fish so I’ll have

an excuse to stand in astream as the afternoon

swirls past.

trunked quaking aspen make their appearance, hedged by broodingDouglas firs. The road climbs easily up to a ridge with stirringpanoramic views and on past a succession of cheerful streams. Atnearly 8,000 feet, I encounter a vibrant forest of blue spruce and cork-bark firs, more like a Tolkien fantasy than an Arizona landscape.

And all that before I discover Big Bonita Creek, some 40 milesafter leaving the highway in Whiteriver. Big Bonita emerges from theclosed area of the reservation north of the road, a sprawling wildernesscentered on sacred Mt. Baldy. Apache game wardens have stocked thegolden, speckled Apache trout in Big Bonita, which remains open tofishermen south of the road. An Apache road crew laughs, jokes andsplashes as they build a fish barrier to protect the Apache trout fromthe downstream rainbows.

I’m instantly smitten: Grabbing my fly rod, I head downstream tofloat my hopeful fly through the tiny pools and musical riffles. I catchnothing, since my natural aura repels fish and crashes computers. Nomatter: I fish so I’ll have an excuse to stand in a stream as the after-noon swirls past.

Finally, I tear myself away and scud on along, as leaves before thestorm. Five miles later, I reach the junction between Y-55 and Y-70. SoI detour briefly to catch-and-release Pachita Lake then backtrack to thejunction and this time head north on Y-20. After about 10 miles, Ireach Reservation Lake, which boasts a store, campgrounds, boatrentals and some of the best lake fishing on the reservation.

But I can’t linger long. I left Whiteriver at 11 and now it’s past 5,which leaves two hours of daylight. So I return to Y-55 and continueon Y-70 south, after puzzling out the mismatched bewilderment of thereservation’s seemingly random road designations. Y-70 drops downthe mountain, as firs yield to ponderosa pines, then to oaks, then to ju-nipers.

I encounter Big Bonita Creek again, this time a lower-elevation ver-sion of Oak Creek in Sedona, with sycamores, cottonwoods, deeppools, brown trout and lurking bass.

After that, the road descends to a grassy plain graced by antelope,which briefly race the car — completing a stirring sample of every sortof Arizona terrain save low, saguaro desert.

Nearing the end of the journey, I pass the inconspicuous tracery ofTurkey Creek, hidden in the bottom of a 15-foot-deep gash in the vol-canic rock. Here, the U.S. Army confined Geronimo and his Chiric-ahua band, as detailed in Lt. Britton Davis’ “The Truth aboutGeronimo.” Harried into surrender by General George Crook and theWhite Mountain Apache scouts, Geronimo’s people settled here for atime. But fear, pride, rumors and bungling finally prompted Geron-imo to bolt, triggering the final, bloody, two-year phase of the ApacheWars that horrified the nation and sucked in one-quarter of the U.S.Army.

I flit past the site as the darkness gathers, drunk on the day. As the shadows lengthen, I think of the gleam of the trout, the

sound of the stream, the trunks of the aspen, the sway of the spruce,the luminous green of the grass, the reflections of the clouds, the callof the turkeys, the golden glow of the elk, and the track of the bear.And in this one day’s wander, I understand utterly why the Apachefought so hard.

Even if I do not know the proper names of the places that canmake me wise.

53Arizona Highlands

WHEN YOU GO:You can reach Whiteriver either on Highway 60/77 that passes through the Salt River Canyon north of Globe or by goingfirst to Show Low, then heading south on Highway 60/77. In Whiteriver, get a fishing permit from the Apache Game andFish office at the Fatco Road and the highway. Get a booklet with regulations, which also shows a map of the closedareas. In addition, get a detailed map showing the reservation roads, since many of the numbers used in non-reserva-tion mapbooks use different and confusing numbers. A fishing permit allows you to use dirt roads in any non-closedareas. Camping requires a permit. For information, call the Apache Game and Fish Department (928-338-4385).

For lodging, you can stay at the modest White Mountain Apache Motel in Whiteriver or at the Hon-Dah Casino and Resort(1-800-929-8744) to the north at the junction of Highway 60 and Highway 260. Nearby Pinetop, Lakeside and ShowLow also have accommodations.

Read tribal fishing regulations carefully. Areas like Christmas Tree Lake requirespecial permits, Pacheta Lake is catch-and-release and many streams are flyand lure fishing only. Reservation Lake offers boat rentals and excellent fishingopportunities.

54

Th

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Tom

Bro

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55Arizona Highlands

Old Town is stilla cool little town where youcan see peopleriding throughon horseback

by Suzanne Jacobson

A gray, quiet Saturday afternoon unfolds in Old TownCottonwood as a spattering of tourists browse through Tico, aconsignment shop on the street’s far end.

Owner Pame Lynn opened the store last summer soonafter she relocated from Prescott.

Lynn says she was called to Cottonwood. She’d wake inthe middle of the night, feeling pulled to the oddball old townwith the Verde River running through it.

Cottonwood is a quirky collection of old-timers and new-comers, people who love the place’s isolation and outdoor op-portunities.

Old Town itself features a bakery, coffee houses, antiqueshops, a motel, restaurants and a rock place among other stopson Main Street. The few blocks that comprise Old Town enjoya low vacancy rate — architecturally historic with a moderntwist.

“There’s no reason this strip is not on the map,” saidLynn. “If we all get together consciously and see that this streetis already happening, it could explode.”

Few visitors strolled the streets on this Saturday afternoon.Ellen Van Wert, who owns Jim and Ellen’s Rock-n-Shop withher husband, said that visitors tend not to wander when thesky threatens rain.

Van Wert loves Cottonwood. “This little valley — it’s thewhole deal,” she said. She ambles to the nearby river andwatches for the deer, beaver and otter that frolic there.

“We’re not crowded with people who are looking to be en-tertained,” Van Wert said. “We have people who like our ambi-ence.”

Old Town Cottonwood’s ambience is mellow and funky,with dashes of both modern and old school.

Beyond the obligatory art and antique shops, one can eat,get tattooed, be healed or take a yoga class on Main Street.

During the day, Orion Bread Company offers freshlybaked bread and baguettes in addition to cinnamon rolls, freshevery morning at 7 a.m., and chocolate brioche.

Crema Coffee and Creamery, a modern shop with sand-

“— Barry Supalla”

Tom Brossart

Mexican terra cotta potshang from ropes at Jim andEllen’s Rock-n-Shop in OldTown Cottonwood.

Bing’s Burger Stationdominates part of MainStreet with its old gaspump and car outside theburger place.


wiches and homemade gelato, rises up near thestart of Main Street.

Featured meals change constantly, but thisday’s included smoked turkey and pesto on pro-volone and a breakfast burrito. Crema also of-

fers gelato in original flavors likeblood orange, which can be com-plemented with beer, wine or coffee.

Nic’s Italian Steak and Crab House, an up-scale restaurant, is often too crowded for imme-diate seating on the weekends. It opens after

5 p.m. For sports fans, the Tavern Grille offers 14

high definition televisions that play basketballand football, as well as monster truck jams andbull riding. The menu features delicacies likeseared ahi tuna for $18 and a $20 prime rib. Avariety of burgers each cost $9.

For the dive bar set, Kactus Kates offersbeer, billiards, darts, karaoke and live music.Hungry travelers can also find Thai, Mexican orbarbecue.

After filling your belly, try one of OldTown’s affordable hotels.

The bed and breakfast, The Annabel Inn,features organic food and an environmentcleaned without toxic chemicals.

The Historic Cottonwood Hotel is thetown’s oldest hotel. Visitors can view an ornatetin ceiling in the office and hardwood floorsthroughout most of the building.

Many visitors to Cottonwood have driftedhere off the Historic 89A from proximate Se-dona. Nearby Jerome, an old mining townturned ghost town now has roughly 450 inhabi-tants and a quirky creative scene.

Dead Horse Ranch State Park is also closeby for those wanting to camp, hike or bike. TheVerde River offers canoeing, fishing and wadingopportunities.

Back in Old Town Cottonwood, thePoirier’s, from the Canadian side of NiagaraFalls, ventured to Old Town from the morepopulated Red Rock capital of the world. JimPoirier said Cottonwood’s “old town charm” at-tracted his wife and he to the downtown desti-nation.

Many of Cottonwood’s visitors hail fromfaraway places. Another lady shopping at Ticoconsignments down the street visited fromFlorida. Lynn, Tico’s owner, said she sees a lotof Europeans.

Lynn estimated that one-third of those whoshop downtown Cottonwood actually live inthe area, and the remainder filter in from else-where.

Barry Supalla, a barista at Crema, said thestreet has cycled in and out of prosperitythroughout the years.

Supalla lives in Jerome and loves the out-door amenities the area boasts. The Verde Val-ley offers a vibrant artists community, withmusic and theater and poetry jams.

“Old Town is still a cool little town whereyou can see people riding through on horse-back,” Supalla said.

The Old Town Association organizesevents like Chocolate Walks, Film and Art Festsand a fall event with music, food and wine.

Saturdays, a Cottonwood Community

Tom Brossart

57Arizona Highlands

Contra Dance follows a potluck dinner at the town’s CivicCenter on Main Street. Dance lessons precede an eveningdance that starts at 7 p.m.

Starting at 4 p.m. on Saturdays, Bing’s Burger Stationhosts an Old Town Cruise night with cars, trucks and mo-torcycles at least as old as 1972 crowding around the old-styled gas station.

Places like Bing’s honor Old Town’s modern twist onhistory. The restaurant looks exactly how an old-schoolburger joint would look brand new. Bing’s even featuresold-fashioned soda jerks with innovative flavors like peach,mulberry and lime.

Today’s retail economy is far flung from Cotton-wood’s start as an agricultural and commercial center forthe nearby mining town of Jerome.

The town’s first permanent settlers can be traced backto the 1870s. Before then, the area was mostly a camp-ground for travelers crossing the Verde River.

In 1908, two residents used a mule team to dragthrough brush, and create Main Street, according to theVerde Independent newspaper. Old Town had a reputationfor bootlegging and one local business owner, ManuelSanchez, says tunnels under the streets were used to hide il-legal booze. In 1925, a fire devastated downtown. But inrebuilding, concrete sidewalks replaced wooden board-

walks and most businessesrebuilt with concrete.

Sanchez, who onceoperated a bright yellowantique shop on the maindrag, now cuts hair andsells Egyptian art.

“It’s peaceful,” he saysabout the town, and againcites the nearby river asone of the area’s main at-tractions.

Sanchez, 60, was bornin Jerome, and livingthrough the town’s up anddowns has made him cyni-cal. “Everybody thinksthat it’s going to get bet-ter,” he said. “It’s like adead heartbeat.”

“But,” he quickly adds, “You’ve got to create your ownmagic.”

And with Old Town Cottonwood’s eclectic and quirkyofferings, this off-the-beaten path gem will hopefully con-tinue to thrive.

Getting thereThe aroma of freshlybaked bread andpastries at the OrionBread Company arehard to resist.

Where: Located in the heartof the Verde Valley, Old TownCottonwood is home to over60 businesses that attractvisitors and support local arearesidents. It is close to Sedona on Highway 260 on the way to Jerome.

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