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State jobs picture grim, but mines are hiring

Want a job? You might want to consider working in an open-pit copper mine.

A new report by the Arizona Department of Commerce estimates that between 2008 and 2009, the state will lose about 50,000 jobs — almost 2 percent of its total non-farm employment.

One of the few bright spots — if you can call it that — is the natural resources and mining industries. They’re going like gangbusters, with a projected growth of 14 percent this year, and 7.1 percent the next.

The copper industry is even hotter, with employment up 25 percent this year, according to the Arizona Mining Association.

While that might sound like a lot of new jobs, it really isn’t: all told, the copper industry only employs about 10,000 people in the state. Nevertheless, since many of those 10,000 folks are operating really, really, really big shovels, trucks and other machines, they are tearing stuff up like never before.

John Collins Rudolf

Copper mine west of Tucson poised for restart

According to this Reuters story, yet another copper mine in Arizona is poised to go back into production.

Nord Resources Corp. is gearing up operations at the Johnson Camp Mine, about 65 miles west of Tucson, an open-pit heap-leach operation that closed in 2003 due to low copper prices.

Nord secured an air-quality permit from the Arizona Dept. of Environmental Quality last month that was the company’s last hurdle to clear before reopening the mine.

The company’s CEO told Reuters that the mine’s full production could reach 25 million pounds of copper by spring 2009.

With new mines popping up and old mines like Johnson Camp returning to production, it’s pretty clear that Arizona’s copper industry is hot. But with copper prices tied closely to global economic conditions, is the industry poised for a fall?

Only time will tell.

John Collins Rudolf

Uranium exploration near Grand Canyon sparks battle with Bush administration

In the fight to protect the Grand Canyon from uranium mining and exploration, one battle is over, but another has just begun.

Last week, three environmental groups – the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and the Grand Canyon Trust – announced they had reached a settlement with VANE Minerals, a U.K.-based minerals exploration firm that had previously received approval from the Forest Service to drill 39 exploratory holes in search of uranium deposits in the Kaibab National Forest, which borders both the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon.

Essentially, VANE is back at square one. If they still want to drill some holes, they will have to go through much more rigorous environmental review than they had previously faced.

Thanks to an injunction by a federal judge back in April, “the writing was on the wall that they were going to lose the case,” says Taylor McKinnon, public lands program director for the Center for Biological Diversity.

With the settlement, VANE essentially folded a losing hand.

It’s a big victory, but the issue is far from settled.

“This has been our flagship battle for a much, much larger war,” McKinnon says.

That’s because if mining companies like VANE are willing to go to the time and expense, they very well may be able to gain approval for exploratory drilling in the future.

While exploratory drilling causes relatively little damage in comparison to, say, a large heap-leach uranium strip mine, environmental groups like the CBD are determined to stop any exploration near the Canyon.

That’s because under the 1872 Mining Law, the bedrock of federal mining legislation, once a recoverable mineral deposit has been found, it gains a whole host of new legal rights and protections and becomes very difficult – and expensive – to stop.

So, until Congress gets around to reforming the 1872 Mining Act – hell, it’s only been 136 years – stopping exploration is the only way to really nip a mining project in the bud.

A few members of Congress have now gotten into the act, seeking to withdraw a huge section of land near the Grand Canyon from mineral exploration – using an emergency declaration that last three years and that federal law says the Department of the Interior is compelled to respect.

The declaration was passed on June 25, 2008, but has been ignored by Interior, prompting a new lawsuit by environmentalists – filed Monday – seeking to compel Secretary Dick Kempthorne to stop approving exploration projects within the withdrawal area.

TZR founder Adam Klawonn has the skinny here.

To Taylor McKinnon, it’s a classic power struggle between the executive and the legislative.

“I think that the Bush Administration objects to the power afforded Congress over the executive branch in this case,” he says.

The Bush Administration in a power grab? That’s shocking. Just shocking.

John Collins Rudolf

Lawsuit aims to block uranium mining near Grand Canyon

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK — Three large environmental groups are suing the federal government for allegedly dragging its heels to protect almost 1.1 million acres near the Grand Canyon from uranium mining and other such projects.

The 19-page complaint in federal court in Tucson comes from the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity. The nonprofit has more than 40,000 members dedicated to the preservation and restoration of ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide.

It is joined by the Sierra Club and the Grand Canyon Trust, a Flagstaff-based nonprofit whose 3,500 members are bent on protecting the Colorado River Plateau.

Together, the three groups are asking U.S. District Court Judge Neil V. Wake — the same judge who upheld Arizona’s controversial employer sanctions law — to force the nation’s Interior department to seal off sensitive lands near Grand Canyon National Park, thwarting mining outfits’ plans in the process.

They claim a recently approved federal law grants these lands the proper protection, but that Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has ignored it.

In March, the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act of 2008 was introduced in Congress. It removes more than 1 million acres of public lands adjacent to the park from certain mining activities, the complaint states.

On June 25, the House Committee on Natural Resources issued an emergency resolution to compel Kempthorne to preserve these lands immediately. At the time, word was trickling out through news reports that a uranium-mining project near Grand Canyon National Park had been approved by the U.S. Forest Service.

Demand for uranium was skyrocketing due to an increased interest in nuclear power worldwide – especially in fast-growing developing countries. About 1,100 mining claims were believed to exist within 5 miles of the park, and forest officials had approved drilling for seven sites within three miles of the park boundaries.

“The Committee found that previous uranium mining operations near Grand Canyon National Park have left a legacy of debilitating illness and death among Native Peoples in the area, and resulted in contaminated soil and ground water that remains unremediated,” the complaint claims.

Three weeks after the committee declared the emergency, Kempthorne sent a letter in response indicating he will not protect the lands, according to the complaint. The Center for Biological Diversity waded into the fight, but Kempthorne did not respond to their petition either, the complaint claims.

On June 27, the federal Bureau of Land Management, an agency that oversees public lands, allowed the mining company to start drilling.

The resulting lawsuit asks Judge Wake to force Kempthorne to protect the lands immediately, shut down the remaining uranium-mining projects and prevent other such projects from popping up inside the 1.1 million-acre zone in the future.

The Center for Biological Diversity is being represented by lawyer Marc D. Fink of Duluth, Minn.; the Grand Canyon Trust is being represented by lawyer Neil Levine of Denver; and lawyer Roger Flynn of Lyons, Colo., is working with them on behalf of Western Mining Action Project.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

VP pick Palin wins environmentalist ‘Dodo’ prize

As prizes go, it’s probably not one you’d want on your trophy shelf: the Center for Biological Diversity’s Rubber Dodo award.

This year’s recipient is governor of Alaska and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

“She richly deserves it,” says Tim Ellis, spokesman for the Tucson-based group. “Her environmental record is a disaster and we just wanted to draw attention to that.”

The handsome trophy, pictured above, honors Palin “for seeking to block Endangered Species Act protection for the polar bear, lying about, then suppressing state scientific reviews, and denying that greenhouse gas emissions cause global warming.”

The trophy will be mailed to the governor’s mansion sometime this week, I’m told.

“It’s just about ready to fly north,” says Ellis.

Despite the fairly obvious meltdown occurring in her home state – thawing permafrost, disappearing sea ice, unseasonably warm winters and generally weird weather – Palin still doesn’t believe that human activity is having an impact on the climate.

“A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made,” Palin told the right-wing magazine Newsmax earlier this summer.

It’s a view that puts her to the right even of the leaders of her own party.

It was the Bush administration’s Department of the Interior, after all, that finally labeled the polar bear as ‘threatened,’ (albeit without taking any actions that would protect the bear’s habitat from offshore oil drilling or carbon emissions.)

If Palin doesn’t believe in manmade climate change, well, I suppose that’s her right.

But where she crossed the line from fool to crook was by using her power as governor of Alaska to obscure the work of biologists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, critics say.

Palin claimed that studies by state biologists cast doubt on the conclusions of federal scientists, who had determined that vanishing sea ice threatened the bears. Without scientific consensus, she said, listing the bears as endangered or threatened was a mistake.

“I strongly believe that adding them to the list is the wrong move at this time. My decision is based on a comprehensive review by state wildlife officials of scientific information from a broad range of climate, ice and polar bear experts,” she wrote in a New York Times editorial.

But through a Freedom of Information Act request, a University of Alaska got his hands on the studies in question — which said nothing of the sort.

“Essentially, she lied,” University of Alaska professor Rick Steiner told ABC News.

The move vaulted her over the opposition and earned her the coveted Rubber Dodo – and the enmity of environmental crusaders like Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

“To maintain her ludicrous opposition to protecting the polar bear in the face of massive scientific consensus, Palin stepped over the line to lie about and suppress government science,” Suckling said in a statement.

The irony is, of course, that John McCain was supposedly one of the few Republicans that actually got global warming.

He’s proposed legislation – co-sponsored with Joe Lieberman – that would have put the U.S. on track to cut emissions.

And here he is nominating for his vice-president a woman who basically thinks climate change is some kind of liberal bogeyman cooked up by environmentalists.

In our view, McCain, in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to get elected, shoved Mother Earth under the bus.

And what does this all have to do with Arizona? Maybe more than you think.

Recent studies suggest that we here in the desert may be more closely linked to the health of the Arctic sea ice than previously believed.

It seems that fluctuations in the sea ice may be linked to weather patterns in the Pacific Ocean. In particular, as sea ice declines, more storm systems from the Pacific may head north, bypassing the Southwest.

It does strike me as an interesting coincidence that the so-called Medieval Warm Period happened to coincide with the mega-drought in the Southwest that led to the fall of the Anasazi civilization.

In any case, fly, dodo, fly.

Eco-hero, minus the cape

TEMPE — Steve Brittle once marshaled an entire Arizona town to shoot video of an environmental catastrophe to get the attention of the authorities.

Eleven years later, this self-proclaimed “hell-raiser” is still digging up dirt on industrial contamination around Arizona, and he shared his adventures at a recent Arizona State University lecture entitled, “Seeking Justice in Arizona.”

Brittle, now 57, is the co-founder and president of Don’t Waste Arizona, a nonprofit that promotes public awareness of environmental hazards facing Arizona’s natural resources by tracking the activities of big polluters since 1990.

“It was a matter of keeping the issues in front of the public, and not letting them get away with it,” Brittle said.

As an Air force brat, Brittle says he quickly learned about racism at a young age. He attended to a segregated school for part of his life in Florida. Brittle said this became an integral part of his social upbringing before heading to college at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. He earned a bachelor’s degree in history there in 1973 and also studied environmental science.

His activist track record spans several Arizona issues and towns. Brittle says he has worked to help get 180 homes and four schools decontaminated. Some very specific movements he is known for are Victims of the ‘92 Toxic Fires, What Goes on at Night Can Kill You and Hayden’s Nightmare. All of them deal with various toxic pollutants creating a public health scare.

In 1992, he helped form a group called the Concerned Residents of South Phoenix (CRSP) to inform people of the environmental issues that were occurring from a toxic chemical fire there. Brittle says the chemicals affected a predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhood.

Brittle said most of the houses were filled with chemicals in the air ducts. Hydrogen fluoride was produced, and four years later, the chemicals were still there. When Brittle noticed he had a sore that didn’t heal, he went to a meeting with other neighbors to, “raise hell.”

“I’ve always been a hell-raiser, never been arrested for it,” Brittle quipped.

The CRSP, Concerned Residents of South Phoenix, confirmed that the death percentage increased in their neighborhood. Researchers also proved that the death rate rose since the incident.

Another awareness project Brittle was involved in focused on sand and gravel industry on 51st Avenue, along the Salt River bed and Sun City. It was called What Goes on at Night Can Kill You, based on a video that shows the dust spewed from the projects at overnight.

Hayden’s Nightmare is also an area that many citizens have a high risk of obtaining lung cancer. Brittle said companies tried to blame it on smoking, but that a testing center which analyzed blood from newborn babies in the area were inconclusive. Brittle said when he goes to Hayden; he has to sleep the next day because of all the chemicals.

Regardless of the outcome, Brittle’s tactics are what draws headlines. During the Hayden project, he, his camera crew, and several Hayden residents went around town videotaping environmental issues associated with toxic chemicals.

The town council called an emergency meeting because its members saw the camera crew. Police officers stopped by and ran his plates. The whole operation with the toxic chemicals in Hayden turned off and they have significantly won the battle.

“People want us to do something, so they call and we go after things,” Brittle said.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Rosemont mine will destroy Hohokam ruins, archeologist says

The proposed Rosemont copper mine has been the focus of a huge amount of attention in the Tucson area, but one issue has largely evaded public concern so far: the impact of the mining operation on ancient Hohokam archeological sites in the area.

(I explored the Rosemont issue in depth a few weeks ago in this Zonie Report story.)

The site of the mine contains the ruins of a Hohokam ball field and a large village, says Gayle Hartmann, an archeologist with the Arizona State Museum in Tucson.

The earliest ruins on the property date back almost 1,900 years.

“There’s lots of reasons why this mine shouldn’t be there, and this is certainly one of them,” she says.

The ballcourt and village were initially excavated about 20 years ago during a previous mining company’s exploration of the area.

“It was a large Hohokam village, and it did have a ballcourt,” Hartmann says of the site. “There are not a huge amount of ballcourts in the Tucson area. To have a ballcourt, you had to be a village of some prominence.”

While the ballcourt ruins are not unique, many others have already been destroyed by development.

“It’s not unique, but many of them are gone. They get destroyed,” she says. “From my point of view, this is one more value that we will lose if this mining operation goes through.”

While state law requires that archeological sites be investigated and documented, once the investigation is complete, development projects like the proposed mine can continue, even if they destroy the site in the process.

The Rosemont mine plan of operations devotes only a few paragraphs to the issue of archeological sites.

“The Rosemont Project area has a ranching and mining past, and many relics of these enterprises remain. In addition, evidence from past archaeological surveys indicates that prehistoric sites are present as well,” the plan reads. “Rosemont Project planning has included efforts to reduce the overall footprint of the project to the minimum possible area, thereby avoiding cultural resources to the extent practicable.”

Hartmann estimates that the archeological work will cost the company a minimum of $1 million, and that local tribal representatives will have to be involved.

“In this case, the odds are that the Apache, Zuni and Yaqui will have to be consulted with before anything can go ahead,” she says.

The process could drag out the mine’s development as sites are catalogued and any remains are properly turned over to tribal representatives.

Hartmann, who strongly opposes the mine, says that while the cost of mitigating archeological concerns for the mine site may be pocket change to Rosemont, the time and expense is just one more headache for the company to deal with.

“I think they were naïve when they bought the property. They’re trying to make the public think that everything is hunky-dory,” she says. “They’re beginning to become aware that there is an awful lot that they will have to do before they ever get a mining permit, and mitigating the archeology would be one of them.”

JCR

West Fork offers refuge from ‘touristy’ Sedona

ALONG THE WEST FORK TRAIL — “I’m not sure why I came to Sedona,” remarks Janet Hamilton, a massage therapist visiting from Manhattan.

Hamilton has just joined me in a sandstone alcove located along the clear waters of the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon, where we’ve both stopped to take a rest. “It’s too touristy for me,” she says.

The irony of Hamilton’s comment seems to escape her, seeing as how she’s a tourist herself. But we both agree that things are nicer out here away from the shops and restaurants. Sedona epitomizes all Western communities that are fated to be both beautiful and endowed with an agreeable climate: commercialized and populated to the point where the very qualities of space, quiet, and freedom to explore, which so captivated everyone in the first place, have largely disappeared, exchanged without apology for a grid of exorbitant real estate.

It’s the way of the West. In Arizona you don’t have to stick around long to see gorgeous desert transformed into parking lots. But Sedona is also the place where the Colorado Plateau’s southern edge drops in a dramatic escarpment of sedimentary rock called the Mogollon Rim, a convoluted terrain riddled with rough canyons and high, forested mesas that lay well outside the reach of development. One of the best known canyons is West Fork, a tributary to Oak Creek Canyon, where I have come not only to experience the land but also to push beyond the well-beaten trail leading into this canyon.

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West Fork is the most popular trail in the Sedona area with its easy hiking, cool running stream and beauty. The Sedona tourism industry directs so many visitors to West Fork by encouraging sightseers to hike the gentle 3.5-mile trail from the Call O’ The Canyon parking lot ($8 to park). It’s not unusual for the place to be filled with hundreds of people on a summertime weekend.

Although gorgeous and even tranquil in those 3.5 miles, West Fork continues nine more intriguing miles past the trail’s end, deeper into the officially designated Red Rocks-Secret Mountain Wilderness, where people tend to be fewer and the wilderness more truly wild.

A pool that stretches from wall to wall at the 3.5-mile mark signals the gateway to this upper stretch of canyon. The prospect of getting wet is enough to convince the majority of hikers to turn back at this point and head for home. But for the more adventurous, this is where the hike really starts.

The water is a perfect temperature, and hardly ever more than two feet deep. After the trail disappears, it’s usually easiest to walk in the creek instead of bushwhacking along the banks. Minnows and small fish dart from your footsteps as you slosh along.

The same red and white sandstones that make Sedona so attractive also form the 1,500-foot walls of West Fork. As I head past the wading pool and round a few turns in the canyon, the cliffs make for a continuously shifting array of spectacular erosional forms – buttes, spires, alcoves, walls streaked with desert varnish, petrified sand dunes – all of which support a forest of cliff-bound ponderosas and Douglas firs. It makes it hard to keep your eyes on your feet, which you’ll need to do to avoid slippery rocks.

Every so often a wet-smelling, cool breeze flows downstream. Although it’s warm enough in August to take an afternoon dip in the creek, you’ll never feel like you’re getting sun-blasted in this part of West Fork. In many places, the namesake oaks and other deciduous trees overhang the creek, and in other places, arching “waves” of sandstone loom over the running water to provide a shady avenue for travel.

While taking a break at a bend in the canyon, I enjoy the relative quiet afforded by the lack of people. Canyon wrens sing from unseen perches, scrub jays squawk in their harsh voices, and flowing water gurgles nearby. A spring beside the creek fills my water bottle with sweet, pure water and I drink deeply, soaking in the pleasures of solitude beneath the majestic, towering canyon walls.

Side canyons appear occasionally, some of which invite exploration. In any given year, more black bears and mountain lions see these minor tributaries than people. However, I stick to the main canyon, where wildflowers and ferns and mosses sprout from the sandstone along the creek.

When I’ve had enough of walking, I choose a pleasant alcove to spend two nights. Few others venture here, but those who I do are like Janet Hamilton: like-minded folks who are relieved to know there is still a place near a “touristy” town like Sedona where nature retains its potent magic.

HOW TO GET THERE

Driving directions: From the junction of Arizona 179 and 89A in Sedona, drive north on Arizona 89A for 10.3 miles, then turn west into the Call of the Canyon day use area.

Facilities: Restroom. The day use area is open from 8 a.m. to dusk.

Cost: $8 per vehicle. Red Rock Parking Passes are not accepted here, nor are national park passes.

Length: 6.8-mile round trip to the end of the designated trail and back, 24 miles if hiking to the very upper end of the canyon and back. Camping is allowed, but only 6 miles beyond the parking lot.

Note: Take hiking shoes that you can get wet. Dogs are allowed but must be leashed.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com.

Energy outfit seeks oil in Mohave County

TUCSON — A Denver-based energy company is suing for the right to mine up to 1.2 million acres in northwestern Arizona for oil, gas and other hydrocarbons.

The case involves Mohave County land owned by Santa Fe Pacific Railroad Co. It signed a lease with Santa Fe Energy Co. in 1987 that allowed the energy outfit to drill for oil and ask for an extension once the lease expired.

But several mergers and transactions have occurred by the time the 20-year deal expired. Now the new energy company, Prize Energy Holdings, is staking its claim to the old lease.

In its seven-page complaint, Prize accuses the railroad of reneging on the lease even though it filed all the right paperwork. It also accuses the railroad of trying to sell the leased land to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in 2004 and Arizona Acreage LLC in 2005.

The company is asking a federal judge in Tucson to honor the lease and order the railroad to pay all costs and attorney’s fees.

Phoenix lawyer Jennifer Dioguardi and Denver lawyer James Kilroy, both of Snell & Wilmer, are representing Prize Energy Resources.

Flagstaff hiking, history come together at Weatherford Trail

Traveling around northern Arizona’s canyons and mountains, I sometimes wonder: What would this place be like without a road going through it?

Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona is a good example. Just over a century ago, it was home to grizzly bears that drank from a clear-running stream. If you dared, you went into Oak Creek Canyon on horseback or foot.

Nowadays the highway in Oak Creek gets clogged with impatient drivers “visiting” what has long since become a tourist hot spot, and the Forest Service regularly closes the creek due to unsafe levels of fecal contamination.

I use roads as much as anyone. But when confronted with the idea of hiking just another stretch of asphalt wilderness, I opted for the high road and chose the Weatherford Trail.

In 1926, this route north of Flagstaff began as a road leading 10 miles and 4,000 feet up to the highest ridges of the San Francisco Peaks. Entrepreneur John W. Weatherford (you can still eat at the hotel he built in downtown Flagstaff – the Weatherford) made such a drive possible by throwing 10 years and many dollars at the mountain with hopes of attracting motoring tourists to Flagstaff. “Drive to the summit of Arizona’s highest peaks!” the slogans screamed.

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Thanks to the Great Depression, money for leisure travel dried up soon after Weatherford completed the project, and so did the business. The Forest Service bought the road for $15,500 in 1942 and wisely closed it to vehicular traffic, choosing instead to rehabilitate it as a hiking trail. No doubt Northern Arizona’s Native American tribes such as the Navajo and Hopi, who consider the Peaks to be sacred, were supportive of the decision.

As I set out on the Weatherford one warm July afternoon, I quickly discover one good thing about old roads – they can make for great hiking. Weatherford engineered his thoroughfare to have modest grades suitable for Model Ts. This means the entire trail is gradual, an easy hike for most. And the one-way, 8.7-mile route tends to follow ridges with excellent views.

Starting from Schultz Tank at 8,000 feet, the Weatherford eases two miles north through ponderosa pines toward looming Fremont Peak. At the 2-mile mark, the boundary for the Kachina Peaks Wilderness appears: No mechanical means of transport allowed herein. Not what old Weatherford had in mind, but I’m thankful to walk his route in silence.

The trail ascends the west rim of Weatherford Canyon (obviously Mr. Weatherford was fond of his name), a wide, several-hundred-foot-deep forested draw filled with Douglas fir, spruce and quaking aspen. Richly green ferns carpet the slopes amongst lichen-covered boulders, and purple lupines line the trail. It smells sugary in these high alpine woods, and I take a deep breath of the moist air.

The trail passes the junction with the Kachina Trail (which leads about 6.5 miles west toward the Arizona Snowbowl) and climbs above Weatherford Canyon along a series of switchbacks. At each elbow in the trail, grassy meadows appear where it is easy to imagine an old-fashioned picnic lunch spread out on a blanket shared with friends. I am alone, so I continue upward. The grade is so moderate that I’m hardly breaking a sweat.

The views of Flagstaff and the foothills below become more and more intriguing as the Weatherford climbs, but I’m completely absorbed by the view in the other direction as I hit the 6-mile mark at Doyle Saddle (also called Fremont Saddle). Here the Inner Basin of the San Francisco Peaks falls away in a spectacle of volcanic walls, aspen groves and meadows that lead downward to numerous cinder cones of the San Francisco volcanic field, and then, miles beyond, toward the red sandstones of the Painted Desert.

I’ve been keeping a close eye on the weather, as it’s monsoon season and lightning has killed hikers on the exposed ridges up above. But the clouds have parted, and I decide to continue.

From Doyle Saddle, the trail courses along the northern slopes of Doyle and Fremont Peaks, passing the Fremont-Agassiz saddle where the rusty remains of Allen Doyle’s tourist camp are strewn about (Doyle was an early guide). Near 11,000 feet, the forest thins to a sparse grove of twisted, ancient bristle cone pines, and then, even these disappear. The Forest Service forbids hiking off-trail above the tree line (11,400 feet) to protect the fragile Senecio Franciscanus plant.

Finally, I am standing 12,000 feet above sea level and overlooking the Agassiz-Humphrey’s saddle, where the Weatherford Trail ends. In the distance to the south, Oak Creek Canyon appears as a gash in the Mogollon Rim.

I can imagine the noise and hubbub of traffic there, but right now, in the silence of these mountain heights where only foot travel is permitted, I turn around and look instead at the grandeur I’ve experienced. It would have been much easier to ride here in a Model T, but I prefer the ache in my legs and feet.

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>>Email the editor @aklaw@zoniereport.com.

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