The area that is now Wickenburg was once Yavapai Indian land and the river that runs through it is the Hassayampa which means “following the water as far as it goes” in the Yavapai language. In 1863, German prospector Henry Wickenburg came to the area in search of gold. He found it and opened the Vulture Mine which would eventually produce 340,000 ounces of gold and 260,000 ounces of silver.
Ranchers came to the area as well and soon a community sprang up. In 1895, the railroad came through Wickenburg which spawned even more growth. The town was incorporated in 1909, making Wickenburg the oldest Arizona town north of Tucson and the 5th oldest in the state. In 1866, Wickenburg missed being named the territorial capital by just two votes.
Today Wickenburg is a quaint little community with a real wild west feel to it (some of the light posts are even wearing cowboy hats). There are some amazing art installations around town and the Desert Caballeros Western Museum is one of the best in the state. I love the design of the Saguaro Theatre which was also probably my favorite theatre in Arizona. You’re never alone when you’re in Wickenburg as life-like statues are spread throughout town making for a family friendly feel. I hadn’t planned on staying long in Wickenburg, but it’s a great town worth exploring and I was there way longer than I expected to be. Next time you’re in this part of Arizona, stop in for a spell. You’ll be glad you did. I hope you enjoy these photos from tiny Wickenburg - the Dude Ranch Capital of the World.
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument was one of the top spots on my list of places to visit during my time in Arizona. It’s a remote park, located two hours from anywhere and right on the U.S./Mexican border, but it’s the only place in the country that you can find naturally occurring organ pipe cactus. In addition to these beauties, there are so many other species of cactus and desert plants as well which has led to this region also being named a part of UNESCO’s International Biosphere Reserve.
Organ Pipe Cactus was made a National Monument by Franklin Roosevelt back in 1937. A special act was passed to allow mining in the area during World War II, an act which sadly wasn’t repealed until 1976. The park’s remote location on the Mexican border used to bring both drug runners and human smugglers through the area, making this America’s most dangerous park. This danger is memorialized in the Kris Eggle Visitors Center which was named for a park ranger who was killed protecting visitors from drug smugglers in 2002. In the wake of his death, the border was reinforced and I felt safe there during my stay.
It was unbelievably hot when I arrived on an afternoon in late April. So hot that I couldn’t actually do anything but hover in the shade of the restroom and wait until the sun started to go down. I did enjoy a wonderful evening hike and an early morning one the following day as well. The area is beautiful and it was great to see the Organ Pipes in their native habitat. It was definitely just a one night stop, but I’m very glad I went. I hope you enjoy these photos from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
Construction on Fort Bowie began in 1862 after two separate confrontations between the United States Army and the Chiricahua Apache. The fort was erected to protect the Apache Pass through the mountains and Apache Springs, a vital water source in the area. Six years later a more substantial fort was built just up the hill from the original fort and would be in service until 1894. The Apache Wars would end in 1886 with the surrender of Chiricahua leader, Geronimo, and the removal of the Chiricahua from the area. As you may remember from a recent post, the U.S. Army was aided in this endeavor by the White Mountain Apache scouts based in Fort Apache to the north who were the sworn enemies of the Chiricahua.
The fort today is a mere remnant of what it once was. The adobe walls have all but melted back into the surrounding desert and the stone foundations and a few odds and ends are all that is left. This park is unique in that it is a “hike-in” park, meaning the only way to visit it is by hiking the 1.5 miles from the parking lot up to Apache Pass. This walk takes you past the old stagecoach stop ruins, the cemetery, an old Apache village, Apache Spring and up to the pass where the fort is located. While the rangers at the park will provide access for people with disabilities, this walk is an amazing way to get a feel for the remoteness of the fort and the isolation the men who were once stationed there must have felt. I was definitely glad I visited in the winter months as I’m sure making this walk in the summer is quite hot and dusty. I was definitely glad I finally made it out to Fort Bowie as it’s been on my to-do list for many years now and I’m glad I finally got there. I hope you enjoy these photos from Fort Bowie National Historic Park.
Hello Everyone!
The weather is very strange here in California. There is a lot of snow up in the mountains and a lot of rain in the rest of the state. Even the desert is getting rain right now. We desperately need all of this water and it’s generally a very good thing but it doesn’t make for great traveling weather. My plans to head to the mountains first were changed to a nice drive down the coast, but then landslides closed Route 1 so I’ve been hanging around somewhere in between. I’ve gotten to some nice museums this week and eaten some delicious meals, but I haven’t done too much or traveled too far. The price of gas in California is outrageous, so when I’m driving it needs to be deliberate. I have been getting through some of my Arizona photos from last winter and working on my podcast and I’ve definitely been getting to the gym every day so that’s good. But I really want to explore California with the time I have and this week has been more about reacclimating to the van life and trying to stay out of the way of the weather.
I started this leg in Sacramento, where my buddy Dave had been watching my van while I was at home and in Europe. I was hoping to head up to Lake Tahoe from there to visit some friends and get some skiing in, but the snowstorms in the mountains closed the roads and kept me from going. I spent a couple of days in Sacramento trying to wait it out, visiting the State Capitol and a few museums and getting a few things fixed on my van before giving up on the mountains and making my way out to Napa Valley.
Napa Valley is not my favorite region of California. I have spent a fair bit of time there over the years trying to find some places I enjoy, but to no avail. It’s a beautiful valley and I enjoyed driving through it, especially with the early spring bloom going on, but it’s a very wealthy area which has been built up to welcome the moneyed elite and not the average Joe. It reminds me a lot of Hilton Head in South Carolina and I just feel very out of place there. I know some people really love it and return year after year, but it’s just not the place for me. I did enjoy a brief visit to the Robert Louis Stevenson museum in St. Helena which, while small, has some interesting artifacts from Stevenson’s life and his time in California. Stevenson spent his honeymoon squatting in an old miners’ cabin in Napa Valley, a story he recounts in his book The Sacramento Squatters. I also had a delightful meal at Bouchon in Yountville which is owned by Thomas Keller, one of America’s most famous chefs
The area around what’s now Patagonia, Arizona was once a Tohono O’odham village called Sonoitac. It may take its current name from the southern region of South America, christened by Welsh miners who had moved north for work. Another theory is that early settlers found a large footprint, perhaps from a grizzly bear (or Sasquatch himself), and called it “Land of the Bigfeet”. However it got its name, Patagonia is a wonderful little town that’s big on art and seems to have sought to beautify even the smallest details of their town.
When the Spanish moved north into the area, they established the Mission Los Reyes de Sonoitac. The region became part of the United States through the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 and lead and silver mines were quickly opened. Fort Buchanan was established to provide protection for the settlers from Apache raiders, later to be joined by Forts Crittenden and Huachuca.
Fort Apache was constructed between 1874 and 1932 and served as an important military outpost during the Apache Wars. It rests in the midst of the beautiful White Mountains of Eastern Arizona. and is well situated at the convergence of the North and East Forks of the White River. The area is the ancestral home of the Cibicue and White Mountain Apache tribes who welcomed the United States Army to build the fort there, as they had a common enemy in the Chiricahua Apache. The White Mountain Apache are very proud of their service as scouts in the U.S. Army, and the role they played in the defeat of the Chiricahua and the capture of the great Chiricahuan leader, Geronimo. I learned a lot about the Apache Scouts and their campaigns at the wonderful "Nohwike' Bagowa" (House of Our Footprints), more commonly referred to as the Apache Cultural Center & Museum. which should be everyone’s first stop on any visit to Fort Apache.
After visiting the museum, I set off to explore the rest of the fort on a self guided walking tour which took in all of the wonderful historic buildings which remain on the post. After Geronimo’s capture in 1886, the fort remained an active military post for many years, finally closing in 1924 (although several Apache scouts remained in the army until 1947). After the army pulled out, the Theodore Roosevelt Indian Boarding School was established and the land was transferred to the Bureau of Indian Affairs as part of the White Mountain Apache Reservation. The school is still there and functioning today. I had a great visit with the kind and welcoming people of the White Mountain Apache band and really enjoyed my visit to this fascinating historic fort. I hope you enjoy these photos from Fort Apache.
There may be no more iconic plant in the United States than the stately and stoic saguaro cactus. These beautiful cacti can grow up to 40’ tall and live to be 150 years old. They won’t start growing arms until they are 75 years old and some will grow many arms in their lives. Most of the natural habitat of the saguaro is in the Sonoran Desert which straddles the U.S./Mexico border.
In 1933, President Herbert Hoover designated Saguaro National Monument which we now call the Rincon Mountain District of the park. In 1961, John F. Kennedy added the Tucson Mountain District to the Monument and in 1994 these two tracts were combined into Saguaro National Park.
I’ve spent a fair bit of time in Tombstone in my life. It was always a stop on my company’s cross-country winter trips, of which I ran many. But it was always a quick stop as we usually arrived late in the short winter day and left early the following morning, but my groups and I always enjoyed the old-west feel of the place, the dirt streets, the wooden sidewalks and having a few beers at Big Nose Kate’s Saloon. It was nice for me to get back this past winter after several years and have a little more time to spend there.
Tombstone is an old silver mining town, founded in 1877, and produced somewhere between $40 million and $85 million worth of silver bullion. During Tombstone’s heyday in the mid-1880s, the town boasted a population of 14,000 and was home to 110 saloons, two churches, three newspapers and a bowling alley. It was named the county seat of Cochise County, a designation it held until 1929. A fire in 1886 destroyed the mine’s central hoist and pumping plant and it was decided that with the productivity of the mines at that point, they weren’t worth rebuilding. The population would dwindle until tourists started to take an interest in the old west and come to have a look for themselves.
Tombstone is probably best known for the legendary shootout at the O.K. Corral between the Earp brothers and Doc Holiday and a group of cattle rustlers known as The Cowboys on October 26th, 1881.
Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona preserves a magical landscape created by a 27 million year old volcanic eruption. The lava hardened into rhyolite and erosion has carved out a wonderland of rock spires, balanced rocks and hoodoos. This little visited park site is truly spectacular and definitely worth a detour.
I arrived in the park late in the day so I didn’t have a ton of time to explore. After a quick stop at the Visitor Center, I made my way all the way up to Masai Point at the end of the 8 mile scenic drive and did the short nature loop there to get a good overview of the area. Then I set off on the magnificent 3.3 mile Echo Canyon/Hailstone/Ed Riggs loop trail which was really fantastic. When I finished this hike, the sun was on its way down and I enjoyed the glow on the rocks as I made my way back down the hill and on down the road.
While I was only in Chiricahua for a few hours, I really enjoyed my stay and look forward to returning again in the future. I hope you enjoy these photos from beautiful Chiricahua National Monument.
Whenever I am driving to a new town and I don’t have a specific destination in mind, I just put the town name into my GPS and it usually brings me to either the courthouse or City Hall. Wherever it leads me is usually in the center of town and I can sort myself out from there. You can imagine my surprise, then, when I was approaching Bisbee, Arizona and I turned onto Erie Street and found myself not in the center of town, but somewhere in the 1950s. It was quite surreal to drive up the street and see nothing but classic cars, vintage gas stations and old signs with no streetlights burning and not a person in sight. My GPS told me I had reached my destination but my mind was telling me otherwise. It turned out that it had indeed led me to Bisbee’s City Hall, but that building was situated in the midst of a wonderful local art/history instillation called the Lowell Americana Project which commemorates small-town life in the 1950s.
The Lowell & Arizona Copper Mining and Smelting Company began operation way back in 1899 under the leadership of Frank Hanchett, who named his business after his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. Three years later, the mine would be incorporated into the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company. Two years after that, the town of Lowell was laid out to house local miners and their families and Erie Street became the commercial center. In 1908, Lowell was annexed into nearby Bisbee and the population would grow to 5,000 people. From what I’ve read it sounds like it was a bustling community and a pleasant place to live.
That would all start to change in 1950 when the Lavender Pit Mine was opened and the community’s population had to sell their homes and move out…
Hello Everyone! I hope all of my American readers had a fabulous 4th of July. I spent mine in Yosemite National Park, which is a beautiful tribute to so much of what’s right with this country. Ken Burns was definitely onto something when he called our national parks “America’s greatest idea”. This country has had its ups and downs and the pendulum continues to swing, but I’m sure you know by now how passionate I am about our national parks and public lands in general. While there were definitely no fireworks allowed anywhere in the vicinity of Yosemite do to extreme drought and fire hazards, I was happy to spend some of the day in the shadow of the mountain known as Liberty Cap – it seemed quite fitting.
Since I am back to work and will be incredibly busy these next few months, these updates are going to come sporadically throughout the summer and early fall. During the last few years, I’ve tried to get them out pretty religiously on Wednesdays with an excellent success rate, but when I’m working it’s a different story. I’m slowly starting to shake the rust off from three years without guiding a tour and I’ve definitely been enjoying being back on the road and being back on payroll. It’s always good to see my accounts rolling up instead of down. I’ve also loved being back in front of a group, sharing my passion for nature and history and sharing travel stories and laughs over dinner and drinks. I have strangely been asked on two of my first four trips to give a brief overview of the American Civil War. Neither was brief, but I like to think they have a significantly better idea of what the war was about.
I’ve been really hoping to have one trip go off without a hitch as most of my trips did for many years before the pandemic. I’ve always been good at covering my bases so that even when things go wrong, most of my passengers will never know the difference. That’s been hard so far this season, and this current trip was no different. I only had four passengers scheduled on this current trip to Yosemite, but only two showed up on our first night together. Thankfully the other two at least left word as to where they were and by the evening of the second day I had all my ducklings gathered ‘round me. This was another 5 day hiking tour to Yosemite and the weather really couldn’t have been better. It was in the mid-60s to low-70s all week and not a cloud in the sky – perfect Yosemite hiking weather. The snow-melt-fed waterfalls are still going strong and the wildflowers are in full bloom. Once I had all of my passengers with me, I could tell we were in for a wonderful week.
And a wonderful week it was. On Sunday we went for lunch at the Iron Door Saloon, the oldest saloon in California dating back to 1852. Then we went out and hiked to see the giant sequoias, the largest living things on earth. Spending time among the sequoias is always humbling and awe-inspiring. When Jesus walked the earth, some of these trees were already a thousand years old.
Monday found us on the Mist Trail, hiking up 1600’ past the beautiful Vernal and Nevada Falls. This is a heavily traveled route and because of that is one I haven’t hiked in many years. I prefer to spend my time in Yosemite in quieter corners of the park. It has been nice to revisit this hike this season as it was the very first hike I ever did in Yosemite, 22 years ago when I was on my training trip to become a guide.
There’s much more to Winslow, Arizona than just that lyric from The Eagle’s hit song Take It Easy, but they are definitely using it to their benefit. Standing On The Corner Park at 2nd Street and Kinsley Avenue is beautifully done and brings in hundreds of tourists a day to this little town of just 10,000 or so residents. The real highlight of the town, though, is the beautifully restored La Posada Hotel, one of the original Harvey Houses opened in 1930. It is still operating as a hotel and I had the pleasure of dining in the Turquoise Room restaurant during my stay (in town, not in the hotel). There are also some great parks down by the railroad, a nice little brewery and plenty of souvenir shops. I also loved the town’s Visitor Center which is housed in the old Hubbell Warehouse which was a railroad hub for John Lorenzo Hubbell’s western trading posts. The lady working there when I visited took me around and showed me all kinds of neat artifacts from the town’s history. When I was leaving, I thanked her and with a well practiced wink she waved and said “hey, take it easy”. I hope you enjoy these photos from tiny Winslow, Arizona.
