August 5, 2020
Alpine in the White Mountains of Arizona is where we have landed for a few-day getaway. At an elevation of just over 8,000 feet, I find that a flannel shirt is just the ticket for comfort while relaxing outside our little rented cabin of an evening.
We are near the state’s eastern border with New Mexico, so it took us a bit to get here - through beautiful mountainous forests all the way.
I have resisted blogging of late, but perhaps this journey will get me going again. I will back up to share some from a recent day trip we enjoyed northward from home.
That was quasi-work-related in that we were scouting locations for a Yavapai College Edventures tour we have planned. Somehow or another, there was a large piece of real estate south of Flagstaff that neither of us had ever ventured into, and that is where we wandered.
The señor has in mind to teach a passel of fascinating stuff related to that area - “The land between the canyons”, he calls it, and so we have been researching various aspects of that intriguing section of forest.
Of course my primary passion is with the people who were early there. The native population called it home for far longer than we know; however, my research interest kicks in with the pioneering ranchers. In fact, one family in particular, the Casners, has consumed whatever spare time I could snatch from other things as I have delved into their origins in Iowa, Missouri, and their travails on the Oregon Trail, the 49er gold rush, Texas murder rampages and finally Arizona, where one of them became the first orchardist in the Verde Valley.
Surely about the time we actually produce the Edventures tour about that region, I will go more into it, but for now, I think I will offer some of my photos from that day along with a bit of commentary.
Because my pard has suffered an injury that renders him unable to do much hiking (horrors!), we simply kept that activity to a minimum. The one exception to that was when we trekked to the rim of an ancient volcanic crater. Dry Lake sits at the bottom of the mammoth basin, nearly a mile across. After our climb, I felt obligated to try for a photograph, but the thickly forested rim made it next to impossible. I satisfied myself with shots of flowers and thistles rising above the pine-needled duff. Chris made it to the top, and more importantly, back again.
. . . with Bill Williams Mountain in the distance to the west . . .
. . . and San Francisco Peaks off to the north. The shot below shows the bed of a defunct logging railroad spanning the lake bed before disappearing into the surrounding forest.
The railroad bed is maintained as a hiking trail; interpretative signage along the way conveys interesting information and vintage photos of the historic logging industry's innovations to transform pine trees into lumber. I learned quite a bit in a few short looks, such as that early on, it was more economically feasible to move the sawmills to the trees than to transport the trees to permanent mills.
With the advent of the railroad, the trees could be transported to permanently-sited mills. The loggers and their families - abodes and all - were actually loaded up and transported to the next timber
cutting section via temporary rail lines.
These historic photos show cabins after they were removed from a rail car and placed adjacent to the line and another as one is being off-loaded.
Sheepmen . . .
Our scout took us on a southerly direction deeper into the woods as we searched for historic sites associated with those early ranchers - mostly sheepmen. Chris used a 1912 USGS map that indicated various cabins, tanks and so on to guide us. Of course we had no idea what might still remain in existence, but the geographical contours could help us to locate the places.
The old road shown below took us to a place called Mill Park, which I presume was the site of an erstwhile logging mill.
The extensive horseshoe-shaped meadowland was a beautiful sight with
roiling storm clouds overhead; however, that brings me to my most
frustrating photography deficit. I couldn't make the shot work with the
bright sky and interesting cloud formations without darkening the
foreground too much. I must work on that one way or another.
And speaking of photography: I am loving my new camera! It came with two lenses - an 18-55 mm and a 70-300 mm, but I am thinking one in between those two would be most beneficial and probably a better mid-range lens, so I need to see about obtaining that.
Back to the hunt: the place by Mill Park was a 19th-century ranch owned by Jim Black. We were unable to locate a cabin site, but admittedly, we were feeling a bit rushed by the stormy weather as we wandered around through the trees. Because we were off on a clay-surface road, we were sure to get trapped if the threatening weather worsened.
Our next target was the Casner cabin and Casner tank. We found the tank and may have located the house site, but remain unsure of that.
Just beyond the tank is a small fenced-in area below a towering but deteriorating ponderosa that is dropping huge limbs. I surmised that might have been where the Casner cabin was located; perhaps more searching will turn up something.
Besides the fact that it was near the tank as shown on the old map, a two-track beyond there took us to a homestead dump, adding to my deduction that we might be in the right spot.
According to my pard, that trail along Casner Cabin Draw leads to an exciting canyon that can only be descended by rappelling down its slick rock waterfalls. Canyoneers with the expertise to descend the canyon then manage their return trip by hiking up the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon, which brings them to their starting point.
I wanted so much to continue our walk out that track (vehicle access was blocked by road conditions), but getting that far had already worn out the señor (sure will be glad when we're past this roadblock). There was another issue that fair shouted "Turn back!", and that was the lightning that was cracking just about overhead. Once again, I had gone farther than was advisable and was obligated to hoof it back to safety.
And the rains came . . .
A combination of factors affected our later-in-the-day activities. Foremost was the extensive time it takes to get from our Prescott home to that region, and then there was that stormy stormy weather. It became clear that daylight would be gone long before we made our bumpy way into all the places we wanted to peruse, so probably another couple of days would be required for our scout. Given that situation, we made a decision that turned out to be perfect: we would drive to the end of the peninsula where there was a lookout spot, and were we ever treated to the most incredible sights!
The primary road through that region is a nicely constructed gravel surface that allows access even in wet times, so that remained a possibility unlike the slimy back roads, so off we went, looking down into the canyon of the west fork of Oak Creek.
The skies opened up and the rain poured . . .
. . . ceasing as we approached the end of the line. To say the scenes that greeted us were stunning would be a gross understatement; I was bowled over by the far-reaching vistas of sun spots and cloud shadows racing across the colorful convoluted landscape spread out before us!
We moved from place to place to get different perspectives as we were awed by the views of Boynton Canyon, Wilson Mountain and the Verde Valley.
Homeward bound scenes were enchanting as the forest released its moisture into the atmosphere.
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