An Easy Overnight Loop On Mount Lemmon

Last week I decided that I really wanted to do some backpacking on Mt. Lemmon. I wanted some water and shade to escape the heat of Tucson and my partner wanted some easy mileage as he had just done 15 miles the day before we headed out. As we approached the Catalina Highway we were…

Out Along The Devil’s Highway

The weather’s just about right for a trip out the El Camino del Diablo and into the Organ Pipe and Cabeza Prieta region west of Ajo. The stretch of the Devils Highway between Ajo and Yuma Arizona is the most spectacular portion of the 250 mile historic route from the Sonoran borderlands to the Pacific….

Hopi Lands

The most terrifying event of my life happened in Old Oraibi when I was 8 years old. I haven’t been back since, but I’m heading uphill out of Moenkopi Farms and onto the Hopi Reservation toward First Mesa and Old Oraibi. Huge sensually green expanses of Mormon Tea remind me of spring Kansas wheat fields,…

Wolves, Wilderness and the Last Grizzly Bear

There are places on the land where events and ideas take place that are more significant than the landscape itself – places like Gettysburg, Thebes, Monticello. Places like Escudilla (ess-coo-dee-ya) Mountain. The third tallest mountain in Arizona at 10,912 feet, beautiful as it is, is not as impressive or majestic or even as noticeable as…

Arizona’s Southwestern Desert

If the Colorado Plateau is Rachmaninov, Arizona’s far southwestern desert is pure Black Sabbath. This country is so intense you swear you can smell the heat and the dramatic sepia tones of the landscape. Your ears ring in the silence of midday. At first glance, you are convinced that there is simply no life here…

The Needles

Utah’s a place that just gets better the deeper you get into it – that’s just a plain fact, and that’s a good thing today. The wind just blew the Bluff town limit sign down so I don’t know where I am, but I know I’ve spent some time here before. That doesn’t bother me…

Red Rocks and Psychics

There is an intense and spiritual place at the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau in northern Arizona where canyons, spires and mesas are carved into and out of the red sandstone layers. Often associated with vortexes, crystals and new age psychics, there is no question that there is something special going on around Sedona….