Journeys

Caninus Lupus Surprizus
February 27, 2015

So, to cut right to the chase with no buildup whatsoever - we saw wolves in the wild! In fact, we were so startled by the sighting that our brains took a while to comprehend the fact. You may believe it or not; you may argue it all you want; you may say it is not possible, but the fact remains that we saw wolves while hiking the back country in the Agua Fria National Monument.

It happened thus: As we hiked along a wash bottom, I spotted what appeared to be a man-made rock wall far above on the canyon rim. That conjecture led us to scramble and bushwhack our way up the steep and rocky cliffside to see what we could see.

Sure enough, it was a built-up rock lip, not prehistoric as we first thought, but something more recent, evidently a rancher’s catchment of sorts to keep cattle from escaping down into the drainage. The climb was a bit strenuous and we had been hiking for a spell, so we opted to take a rest and enjoy the view from our newly-gained vantage point.

A rock wall sits high up from the sand wash below.

I shot some photos of the vastness of our higher surroundings whilst we tanked up on water. After a bit of talking and resting, movement in the high grass back from the rim caught my eye. When I turned in that direction, my brain immediately said “antelope”. As I focused on one of the two creatures, I realized that it was what my brain then identified as “coyote after an antelope”. Keep in mind here that these were instantaneous reactions, come and gone in a flash.

Focusing on the second animal, I then thought they were both coyotes. They had risen up from their resting place in the tall dry grass and were looking directly at us. They did not seem particularly spooked - we were more startled than they; however, they did turn and begin heading away from us, stopping to glance back now and then.

It was then that I decided to photograph them. This is the result:

Can you spot the wolves in the photo? No, of course not, because I was far too excited and flailing about to actually locate them in the viewfinder.

Excitement prevailed to the detriment of getting a shot of them. Zooming the camera and then trying to find the subjects in the view finder while exhorting Chris to help me and flailing away with the camera one way and another, I managed to get a photo of landscape and totally missed the animals.

As we animatedly discussed the encounter, we began to realize that we had seen wolves, not coyotes at all. We got to watch them for a quite a while as their exit from our proximity was nothing more than a relatively leisurely trot across the mesa top until they finally disappeared over a rocky ridge.

The animals were quite large, nearer to the size of a German shepherd if one could be said to judge such while in the throes of such agitation, lacked the narrow pointy snouts of a coyote, and had fur of a somewhat reddish hue.

So there you have it - the most excitement of our year so far!

The diversity of that vast area is immense. This view shows the grassy mesa tops which are in turn ringed by ranges of mountains.

Much of the countryside is volcanic in origin which results in rugged canyons and gnarly footing through rough rockiness often obscured by grass.

Some of the Monument's canyons are wide-bottomed and sand-filled, the result of ravaging floods that occur periodically.

Humanity’s leavings, prehistoric and otherwise . . .

Interestingly, our wolf encounter led us to other discoveries, just as the rock wall led us to the wolves, which we would never have seen otherwise. Prior to that, we had been heading downstream in the dry wash - sometimes it offered a wide flat surface that was deep enough with loose sand to make walking quite a chore.

Other aspects of it manifested as rubbley river rock that was tough hiking as well.

At any rate, we were curious if there might be a den where we first encountered the wolves, so that determined our direction of travel. No den in sight, but just beyond, we found the ruins of a prehistoric rock dwelling and a “pot drop”, a place where one ceramic pot had broken some millennia past, and other pottery scatters.

A scattering of potsherds near an ancient habitation.

Chris is standing in the midst of the rubble that once was a two-room prehistoric habitation.

Powerless to resist, our feet led us in the direction the wolves had taken. We were incredulous to actually encounter a wolf once more, which I assume was one of the pair we spotted earlier. Pretty sure I saw a thought bubble above his head that said something like “What in hades are they doing here; I thought I had gotten rid of them”.

Ira and George at the Cross Y . . .

It was interesting to find another even longer rock wall before we wandered off that mesa top. That is country that my Dad rode in when he was coyboying at the Cross Y Ranch. I couldn't help but wonder if he had used those catchments at the edge of the high country’s escarpments to gather cattle.

When he used to talk about trying to round up wild cows in that country, he would talk about how crazed it was working in Lousy Canyon. At the time, I thought that was merely his description of how rough it was there - turns out it really is the name of that particular canyon.

The Monument covers much of the Cross Y range that Dad and George Berryhill worked. Ira and George were lifelong friends and were so happy to have that later-in-life opportunity to work together out there. They shared many long days of hard, hard work and had a myriad of experiences that lent themselves to yarns for later spinning.

Many of us in their families were privileged to spend time there, also, with Dad showing us his trap lines, and enjoying his and George’s pit barbecues that drew huge crowds; one couple flew in their private plane from Germany for the event every year. Dad and that gentleman were prone to imbibe in a bit of apricot brandy or peppermint schnapps together in celebration of life.

Birds . . .

On our drive into the Monument, we were not too surprised to spot ravens and a red-tailed hawk looking for its morning meal. Not nearly as common was a beautiful kestrel that insisted on keeping just ahead of us while landing on successive road-side vegetation. I wondered why it didn't simply move away from the road if our approach disturbed it. Others, reminiscent of our back-yard birds, were western scrub jay, white-crowned sparrow and northern flicker. Another that we identified on that mostly dry hike was a curve-billed thrasher.

Gila woodpeckers were creating a racket around a very large half-dead sycamore tree in a drainage bottom.

Not surprisingly, a black phoebe was hunting as we stopped for a short hike along Silver Creek and down to the Agua Fria River.

For the times when the river is at flood stage, the Horseshoe Ranch has installed a suspension foot bridge; it allows folks to leave their vehicles behind and walk to the headquarters when the low-water crossing is not passable.

It appears that the Horseshoe is operating in partnership with private foundations and the Game & Fish Department.


This was our peaceful perch for lunch - shaded, just up from the wash bottom - while admiring the rocky outcroppings across the way and awesome clouds blown into odd formations by high winds.

A dried seed pod of a devil's claw plant. The root of a plant by that name is used as an anti-inflammatory especially for relief from arthritis pain, although I am not positive if it is this plant or another by the same name.