TOURING RIM COUNTRY

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From Pinetop to past Payson

If “an apple a day keeps the doctor away,” I would add that, for me, “a camping trip a month keeps the loony bin at bay.” Luckily for me, I always seem to find time to make at least one quick camping trip every month. Not too long ago, I was happy to be able to take an excursion with my long-time friend, Dan. The trip was something of a “moveable feast” in that we drove to new and different camps for each of the three nights we were out. My reason for planning our trip in such a way was two-fold: a) since Dan lives in Denver and doesn’t make it to the Rim Country of Arizona all that often, I wanted to show him a variety of habitats, and b) the weather forecast had called for a cold front to move in during our trip, so I planned things such that each night we would camp several hundred feet lower than the night before.

Things worked out brilliantly, and we had ideal temperatures for each of the three areas in which we camped: one near Chevelon Creek, another near the East Verde River, and a third off of the Rim and at the base of the Mazatzal Mountains. Each leg of the trip being completely enjoyable, they also provided me with two tales, one an interesting bit of natural history and another that qualifies as a “human interest” story, both of which I will now relate:

First, an account of a Cooper’s Hawk, which is a long-tailed, short-winged raptor as adept at hunting in thick woodlands as in open meadows. Dan and I had just come up and out of the dense stand of cottonwood, alder, and willows that grew in the flood plain of Chevelon Creek. The hiking had been difficult, and we were relieved to finally be moving through a relatively open habitat. We walked along an old fence line through weedy fields alive with various sparrows and, underneath the grasses, no doubt, a healthy community of mice and voles. In other words, it was the perfect hunting grounds for a keen-eyed hawk.

Almost on cue, I noticed a crow-sized bird perched atop a spindly snag, not far ahead and directly along our line of travel. Using my binoculars, it took only a moment to identify her as a Cooper’s Hawk – diagnostically marked by the rufous barring on her chest, a blackish crown, and a rounded tail. The hawk held her ground as we walked past. Once we were fifty paces past her snag, I stopped to watch her again and was surprised when she suddenly lifted from her perch, flapped a few quick beats of her rounded wings, and then made a long glide to a fence post quite near me. She perched so close to where I was standing that I could easily see the red irises of her eyes.

Dan was further up ahead of me at this point, so I remained motionless and engaged in an absurd staring contest with the Cooper’s until she finally grew bored and lurched back into the air, flew closely past me, and then, about halfway between Dan and me, abruptly veered and lunged toward prey that I could not see. Having failed to make a kill, she arced rapidly upward and flew on out of sight.

Reflecting on the experience, I concluded that the wily predator had used Dan and me as a way to spook up potential prey. Unfortunately for the hawk, the sparrows and mice proved to be one step ahead in this day’s game of survival and successfully used the thick, brushy cover to their advantage.

Later in our trip, Dan and I were hiking back from a high mountain pass in the Tonto National Forest, where we had been rewarded with a phenomenal view of the Verde River Valley, and stopped to visit with a young guy (I’ll call him Joe) who had driven as close to the Mazatzal Wilderness boundary as any road gets. He was driving an old, beat-up pick-up, which he had parked at the end of the road so that he could stretch his legs and take his two-year-old daughter for a short stroll.

Striking up a conversation, I asked him if he knew anything about an archeological site I had heard was somewhere in the vicinity of Boardinghouse Canyon and which Dan and I had been unable to find during our hike. Joe eyed me cautiously and muttered that there were “lots of ruins in these here mountains.” I could tell he was reluctant to volunteer much in the way of details, perhaps considering this area his own private domain. Nonetheless, we chatted a bit longer, and eventually he warmed up to us and actually seemed to crave conversation. I told him we were going to hike the remaining half mile to our camp and that, if he wanted to meet us down there, he was welcome to join us for a cup of coffee.

Thirty minutes later, as the shadows were growing longer, I had just started a campfire when Joe pulled up. He carried his sleepy daughter over to where Dan was making coffee on the tailgate of his truck, and, soon, they all joined me around a cheery fire in the cooling evening air. Over the course of our casual conversation, it turned out that Joe and I knew a couple of the same families in Payson (I being friends with parents of kids he had gone to grade school with), and, later on, I learned that Joe’s dad had been a “Wildlife Manager” with the agency in which I had spent a major part of my career (the Game and Fish).

Although Joe was probably only in his mid-20’s, he had knocked around plenty and had been, among other things, a hunting guide, a Forest Service wildland firefighter, and a cowboy on a couple different ranches. From our chat, I got the impression he was still working as a ranch hand and that he and his wife lived somewhere between Payson and Gisela. The whole time we were talking, Joe’s pick-up was idling and, since I considered the noise annoying and the pointless idling wasteful, I suggested he turn off his ignition and enjoy the coffee and campfire.

Joe carried his now sleeping daughter back to his truck and laid her down to sleep in the cab and then returned to the campfire for more conversation. I noted that he hadn’t turned off his truck, but, at this point, I figured he had probably kept it running so that the heater would be on to keep his sleeping child warm. Over the next thirty minutes, we talked mostly about forest fires and fighting forest fires. It became obvious Joe had been in at least one major fire and that, quite understandably, it had rattled him profoundly. It was also clear that Joe NEEDED to talk about this particular fire and that he was possibly still in a state of PTSD as a result of being involved in this operation.

When Joe decided the time had come to head home, it was completely dark and getting rather cold. He walked back to his truck only to discover that he had locked his keys inside. Impressively, he kept a cool head (keep in mind, his engine was still running and his daughter was sound asleep inside) and asked if we had a chisel he could use to pry open his window so that he could get a wire jammed down to hit the electronic door unlock button. Although we didn’t have a chisel, I offered a hatchet that he said would work, and, before long, he had succeeded in getting back into his vehicle and did so without even waking his little one.

He seemed a good kid himself and rather relaxed under circumstances that would have totally exasperated many other people. After we parted ways, I couldn’t help but continue to think about him a bit and worry a little too for this kid who was a father, who had fought scary fires, who knew the local wildlands like the back of his hand, and who was a fitting descendent of the pioneers who settled Arizona in the 1800s – brave, resourceful, and deeply connected to the land.

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