Blackberry cobbler, 

the Little Colorado

A delectable dessert was not exactly the highlight of our time in the White Mountains, but it was the one and only treat we had during our five days away.  We had headed over in the direction of Greer and the Little Colorado River to peruse some more country when we spotted one of several open eateries, one in particular that offered various cobblers.  Too much to resist, we ordered two blackberry cobblers to go and enjoyed them to the hilt before lunch.

I thought Greer was a much more attractive town than Alpine.  They seem very different: Alpine is more out in the open situated in a bowl ringed by peaks, and Greer follows along the Little Colorado River early in its flow.  Because both are in heavily forested areas, I'm unsure how many domiciles are out in the perimeters, but I got the impression that Greer has more choices of lodging and dining, and is generally more upscale.  I would try there for our next visit; of course the river there is a big attraction for me.

Along the way, we encountered a flock of wild turkeys, barely managing a photo as they scurried into the undergrowth.

A circuitous route took us past Mexican Hay Lake and up onto a promontory where we were treated to the sight of a rainstorm marching across the valley.

 

 

Our driving tours gave us a wonderful overview of the incredible variety of landscapes throughout the range.  I was captivated by the serenity of the scene below when we crossed the Little Colorado on a bridge.  I risked life and limb to go back for photos - quite an exaggeration since no other vehicles came along but it felt vulnerable out there on that narrow span.

The view on one side was of a wide slow water meander through lush grasslands . . .

. . . and the other side showed swift current through a rocky bluff.

I expected to see more wildlife: the only elk we spotted was a large herd lolling around in a pasture in town, but we did have an unusual rattlesnake encounter.  I regret that I did not have the long lens on my camera, which meant I had to approach closer than otherwise for photos, and that spooked him (me too).

He did something I've never seen a snake do: as he slithered away from me, he kept his head and front quarters (do snakes have quarters - front or otherwise?) turned toward me the whole time.  Interesting in that he couldn't see where he was going, only where that human was hovering behind.

We lunched near a log cabin that we ran across in a wide meadowland with no other signs of human habitation nearby.  

It even had a loft which of course I had to check out.  The steps were not any too sturdy, but with some creaking involved (pretty sure that was the stairs creaking and not me), I discovered absolutely nothing up there except rodent droppings.

 

The Blue

With extended treks and fishing expeditions deferred for now due to Chris' less-than-stellar back condition, we found yet another back country drive that promised to be interesting, and it fully lived up to our expectations.

As we wound our way down the Blue River's canyon, we feasted our eyes on scenes of jumbled vegetation below massive crumbling cliffs.  The river, such as it was, became little more than a trickle at times and occasionally disappeared below the gravelly surface, only to reappear a bit more downstream.  Early on, we were informed via signage that the area is a Mexican wolf reintroduction area, so naturally, we hoped to glimpse those creatures; however, they were nowhere in sight.  Truthfully, the vegetation was so thick in those mostly narrow confines that there could have been thousands of them just out of sight.  We saw that same notice in other places in the White Mountains.

We had read that trout fishing is good in the Blue, but we didn't see any pools that seemed sufficient to harbor fish of any size.  The region is within the Apache-Sitgreaves Forests, but there is lots of private property also.

 

 

 

 The place we pulled out for a lunch stop just happened to be an archaelogical site; I spotted broken potsherds on the ground before I even got out of the truck.  The señor estimated the pueblo to have consisted of 20 to 25 rooms, and two stories - a very sizable ruin indeed.

When we walked down the track that led past there, we came upon historic-era ruins: a house foundation, corrals and gnarly fruit trees around the perimeter of a now-overgrown, but once-cleared field.  I found one apple on a tree, undoubtedly still hanging there because it was too high to reach, even for a deer on its hind legs.

 

 

As we proceeded downcanyon for nearly 30 miles, we only encountered two other vehicles.  Intermittent rain kept us from doing a lot of exploring, although the opportunities for that are limited by the narrowness of the chasm.  Whereever the space opens up, there are ranch houses, even a post office of sorts in a home.  The settlement scattered along the canyon bottom is known as Blue, and even boasts its own zip code and a school.

When rain commenced to be very heavy simultaneous with warnings that we were approaching an even-steeper, more narrow roadway, we opted to turn back and take another route out.  The countryside on that route was more open and drier, but no less spectacular.

 

 

The Blue River canyon is well worth a return visit, which we hope to do.

The Little Colorado, Apache scout. . .

On the earlier jaunt along the Little Colorado River and its south fork or some fork or another, we had seen an unusual sign: "Apache scout grave".  Some research turned up to whom it referred but not much else.  We thought we'd bop on in there again to see where the grave actually was.  Although we had GPS coordinates, the very vague site description was no help, nor were the coordinates because we had no cell phone reception in the steep-sided canyon.  One of us who was not Chris scrambled up the rocky mountainside, but could find no sign of a grave.  

It seems that the Apache scout was Ivan Thomas and that he died in the 1890s.  I still have not found out anything else about his life or his demise.

The search took us on a walkabout along the waterway, whichever fork it may be - a lovely creek with limited access because of overgrown banks.

Sad to leave Arizona's stunning White Mountains, we departed with plenty of ideas for exploration and activities there, and always happy to be headed home.

Best of all, along the way, we stopped at the Mogollon Rim home of our dear kin/friends, Patty & Johnny for a short visit and to drop off genealogy research.  We are always happy to have time with them, and wish it could be more often.

New Mexico

Whoops, seems we slipped - right out of Arizona and over the border into New Mexico.  It was Chris, the map peruser, who suddenly realized we were within striking distance of a place he has wanted to visit.  I don’t do a bucket list, but like him, the place has been on my “Ooh” list - as in “Ooh, I’d like to do that” or “Ooh, that sounds interesting” or “Ooh, I want to go there.

This particular “Ooh” list item was the Whitewater Canyon catwalk.  As you might expect with such a name, the metal hanging trail winds through a steep narrow canyon above Whitewater Creek.

The contraption originated in 1893 as a pipeline to funnel water from the creek to ore milling operations below the canyon in the town of Graham/Whitewater.  A narrow wooden gangplank was laid atop the pipe to allow workers access to it.  Seems to me it was quite an engineering feat to hang that pipeline from those solid rock walls!

It became a rebuild project by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s; however, a major flood washed away their work in 2012.  Now the catwalk has been reconstructed once again.  Although it is an easy walk and very cool to be hanging up there on the side of the slot canyon, the steps and uphills were a bit of a challenge for Chris.  He was happy to have done it, and was fine with waiting while I went on the trail that extends past the catwalk.

Whitewater Canyon’s convoluted rock sides are beautiful - punctuated with gnarly majestic sycamores before it opens up to a pleasant picnic area where the creek invites cool wading.

One thing leads to another . . .

There we were in our neighboring state to the east with daylight remaining and ideas being put into our heads.  We read about a ghost town called Mogollon somewhere in the vicinity and just naturally said "Why not?"  

As we began our ascent into the Mogollon Mountains, we were awed by the views with afternoon showers passing through.

It was not long, though, before doubts began to set in.  Our route was via a state highway, we thought, so how bad could it be?  What a surprise to discover that state highway does not necessarily equate to well-maintained, at least in New Mexico, nor does it denote more width than one lane on the hairpin turns.  In fact, it turned out that the narrow winding crumbling pavement byway was downright scary, causing me to wonder just what we had gotten ourselves into (again!).  A 15 mph speed limit with 10 advised on curves (of which the road was mainly comprised) was a surprise for what we thought would be similar to our own 89A over Mingus Mountain - no comparison!

I gave it my best effort by gasping, holding my breath and clutching at any handhold I could find, with my usual pointless admonishments not to get close to the edge.  After all, the road was so narrow that there was no earthly way to stay away from the edge, but say it I must.

Immediately upon seeing the first signs of ghost town/mining evidence, fear was replaced by excitement.  Never let it be said that I am emotionless…

The tiny burg of Mogollon is as picturesque and interesting as you could ever want in a ghost town.  Like our Jerome, it is partially inhabited, but there the similarity ends.  The town as it exists is very small, but there is evidence of abandoned habitations throughout the surrounding slopes.  The channelized Silver Creek flows along main street.  Like so many early boom towns, Mogollon had its share of devastation from fires and floods.

 This so-called general store was a movie set for a 1973 Henry Fonda movie, "My Name is Nobody".

"Into each life some rain must fall", so said Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and so have we all experienced.  This day, as well as most of our days in the mountains, some rain had fallen, as it did while we were exploring Mogollon, but the reward was a rainbow-hued sky spread out for us when we were atop a peak.

The Little Fanny silver mine, pictured here, was comprised of an astounding four miles of shafts!  It was known to be an exceptionally dusty atmosphere, causing many miners to die of lung disease within a few short years.

It was one of many mines in the district that supported as many as 3,000 residents at one time.

Three sweet triplet deer fawns came out for an evening drink as we departed that region.

Cooney's Tomb . . .

No sooner had we wound our way out of the Mogollon Mountains than we turned off to again follow a sign that indicated something called Cooney's tomb was back in there somewhere, and so it was.

After he was discharged from the U.S. Army cavalry at Fort Bayard in 1875, Sergent James Cooney remained in the area to mine a gold and silver lode he had earlier discovered.  In 1880, Cooney was killed by Victorio's band of Chiracahua Apaches after he had ridden to the town of Alma to warn settlers of an imminent attack.  Also killed in the ambush was a man by the name of Buhlman.  Some accounts relate that a Jack Chick was killed, too, and that he and Buhlman were buried near Cooney, although Chick is not named in newspaper stories about the massacre.  Understandably, communication was spotty and erratic, which may have lead to his name being omitted.

James' brother, Captain Michael Cooney, and others blasted and drilled an opening into a huge boulder to create a sepulcher where James Cooney was entombed.  Evidently, two of Captain Cooney's children are entombed there, also.

Other graves were established around Cooney's tomb.  Four of those in front of it were washed away in a flood along with their marble stones.  Six other marked graves are still there; at least one of them is a child: nine-year-old Elza May, whose father was interred by her after his death in 2011.

Michael Cooney continued to work his brother's claim.  He died while searching for a lost gold mine in the Mogollon Mountains.  The location of the brothers' mine became a settlement called Cooney.  

At the end of the road where the tomb is located, there is a hiking trail that accesses the site of Cooney.  That trail is on my "Ooh!" list.  I also want to return to that area for a hike that overlooks Whitewater Canyon, and to follow the road that goes through Mogollon.  We discovered that there are at least two more towns out that way.  I came to be intrigued by the Mogollon Mountains right away - what a beautiful range to explore!

The bird list for the trip grew a bit while we were in those mountains and canyons; we added lesser goldfinch, summer tanager, spotted towhee, Woodhouse's scrub-jay, Gambel's quail and turkey vulture.