Category: Off Road

Ferguson Valley Picture of the Week

Queen Anne—as my mother would frequently say—is deaf in one ear and can’t hear out of the other. However, she can tell the difference between me calling, “Anne” and the blood-curdling scream, “Aaannee.” I know this to be true because it happened this week when she rushed to my rescue.

I was busy watering the potted flowers that live on the back deck. We keep them there in the shade during the summer, and I have them arranged on the back doorstep, so the bunnies don’t get to them. It doesn’t work because one or two rabbits will scamper off whenever I open the door. I used my cute water can instead of dragging the hose to conserve water. As I finished the mums, I stepped to the left toward the geraniums. There between the two pots was a western diamondback rattlesnake lying in a wad like a pile of tan rope. It laid there motionless while I involuntarily took a couple of steps backward while I screamed in a voice a couple of octaves higher than my normal range.

When she came to see what the fuss was about, I could only stutter, “porch … snake.” She stepped outside and sized up the serpent, then went back into the house. She quickly returned with a long stick that she had used to knock down a hornet’s nest on the front porch. She marched over to the rattler—which hadn’t twitched yet—took a stance, and began whacking at it. The vermin’s head popped up like it had been sleeping and tried to escape to the left. Anne was too quick and outflanked it, then she took a couple more swings at it. Then the legless reptile reversed course and slithered across the landing before it escaped down a gap between the decking and the house.

“Now what’ll we do? What happens now?” I pestered while dancing from foot to foot like I had to go to the potty. She leaned her stick against the house and went inside and called the fire department. I stood watch, ready to run away the moment I saw any movement. When she returned, she assured me, “They said to leave it alone. It knows it’s not loved and will move on when it feels safe again. If we see it again, we’ll call them, and they’ll come to remove it for us.” I was still upset, and I whimpered while nervously rocking back and forth. That’s when she slapped me across the cheek and commanded me to “Snap out of it.” She went back inside and returned with my camera bag and shoved it into my chest and instructed me to “Shut up and get in the truck. We’ll go take some pictures.”

We drove up the mountain to Skull Valley, where it was cooler. Well, it was under a hundred, and that was better than at home. We turned onto a road named Ferguson Valley Road. The dirt trail is only 6-8 miles long, but there was enough material there to keep me busy in August. The route runs by one cattle ranch and ends at a second. I haven’t found any information about this spot on the map, so I’m surmising that the Fergusons must own one of those places.

Ferguson Valley - Against a backdrop of the Sierra Prieta range, a white ranch-house sits in pretty Ferguson Valley.
Ferguson Valley – Against a backdrop of the Sierra Prieta range, a white ranch-house sits in pretty Ferguson Valley.

Perhaps they live in the home seen in this week’s featured image. I called this photo Ferguson Valley, and I spotted this scene as we crossed over a low ridge. I liked how the white ranch buildings contrasted with the juniper and cottonwood. I also wanted the clouds forming over the Sierra Prieta range. They speak to the feeble start of this year’s monsoon season. In a typical year, there would be spectacular thunderheads building in the mountains surrounding Prescott.

It’s been several days since we last saw Fang—yes, we named it—so we’re more cautious when we’re outside. We assume the snake is out there, and we actively search for it as we move about the yard. We’re careful to keep the garage door closed, and we work as a team when exiting the house. Anne stands with her back to the wall—stick in hand—and when I open the door, she swooshes through it, scans the area, and then yells, “Clear!” The swat-team imitation repeats a couple of times until we’ve safely reached the car. I’m better now, but if we have many more rattlers visit us, we’re moving to New Zealand—if they ever let us in again.

You can see a larger version of Ferguson Valley on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you like it. Be sure to come back next week to see another image from this pretty little valley.

Until next time — jw

Mount Union Picture of the Week

One day, I’m going to stand on top of Mount Everest—or Chomolungma (Mother Goddess of the World) as the Tibetans call it. I’ll to need some help, so I’m waiting until they finish the escalator, and a Starbucks is open at each of the decompression stations. It’s bound to happen. The mountain is already overcrowded, so we may as well wholly ruin the highest spot on our planet. Everybody should get a chance to experience that majestic view once in their life.

I love standing on mountains, canyon edges, and tall buildings. Standing there and taking in the vista enhances my map of the world. We all carry one deep in our hippocampus. It’s our sense of direction, and we probably developed it long before we fell out of the trees. It’s natural for us to want to know what’s over there and where the lions are. It’s a tool that we have located in the most primitive area of our brain. Like all of our other muscles, our spatial map works better when it’s exercised.

When I travel to the mountains like the Bradshaws, I make it a point to stop at the viewpoints and take a look around. Being the nerd that I am, I love it when the Highway Department has those displays that tell you what you’re seeing. I spend so much time studying them that Anne finally wakes up mad in the car. She thinks that I’ve abandoned her at the curb, which is silly because I would never leave the car behind.

The Bradshaw Mountains—or Wi:kañacha, in the Yavapai language (rough, black range of rocks)—have six peaks over 7000 feet. The two highest peaks, named during the Civil War, are Mount Union (7979) and Mount Davis (7897)—yes, Jefferson Davis. They’re located on the same ridgeline less than a mile apart. On the Senator Highway that Queen Anne and I explored this month, there’s a side road that goes to Mount Union and a lookout tower. On the other hand, to reach Mount Davis, there aren’t any trails—you have to hike cross country from the Mount Union picnic area.

Mount Union - Or rather, the view from Mount Union looking east towards the Mazatzals.
Mount Union – Or rather, the view from Mount Union looking east towards the Mazatzals.

This week’s featured image has a name different than how I usually name my work. It’s called Mount Union, and I called it that because of where I stood rather than the image’s subject. This time, I found a place for the camera where trees weren’t in the way and of the several angles that I captured; I liked this version the best. This photo is of the view looking east, and it not only shows the dense pine forest on the mountain’s top, but it also includes the Black Hills that are east of Cordes Junction and on the horizon is the Mazatzal Range. Somewhere in the valley between the mountains is Interstate 17—Arizona’s primary north-south corridor.

You can see a larger version of Mount Union on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy seeing it. Be sure to come back next week when we begin a new adventure traveling more of Arizona’s back roads.

Until next time — jw

Stamp Mill Picture of the Week

Everyone has heard the axiom, “All roads lead to Rome.” Well, not in Yavapai County, they don’t. Over the past couple of years of traveling Arizona’s back roads, I’ve found that they lead to mines, and with good reason. We all have a vision of a dusty prospector sneaking off with a couple of burros to a secret gold mine in the mountains—this is before he became the Arizona Lottery huckster. A man like Jacob Waltz may discover a vein of gold, but it takes a corporation to extract it effectively.

To make a ton of money, you have to move a thousand tons of ore. A couple of burlap sacks strapped to a burro’s back just won’t do. You have to move unrefined earth by wagon, truck, or railroad car. So part of The Company’s infrastructure is getting things to and from the mine site. That is the Phelps-Dodge and the Senator Mine story—and this month’s back road adventure.

While bouncing along the Senator Highway in R-Chee (according to his license plate that’s the correct spelling), Anne suddenly blurted, “There’s a large building down there.” Since my side wasn’t overlooking the cliff, I couldn’t see it, so I stopped the truck and walked back to see the steel skeleton of an old structure. “Cool,” I told her as I climbed back into the driver’s seat. “It’s too early, so we’ll stop on the way back when the light is better.”

Stamp Mill - The ruins of the Senator mine stamp mill are perched above the headwaters of the Hassayampa River.
Stamp Mill – The ruins of the Senator mine stamp mill perches above the headwaters of the Hassayampa River. The mill is visible on Google Earth if you zoom in to the Senator Highway where it crosses the Hassayampa River.

After some research, I found out that the building was a 10-unit stamp mill for the Senator mines. As rock came from one of the three parallel shafts, the miners hauled it to the mill, where the hammers pounded big boulders into small ones. As far as ghost towns go, we struck gold (I couldn’t resist the pun, sorry). Concrete foundations usually are all we find in these places, but since this frame was a steel and not timber, the skeleton survives and gives scale to its size. From the road, I could easily walk down the stairs and wander the four floors. Vandals have decorated the remaining vertical walls for Christmas with colorful graffiti everywhere, so I guessed that we weren’t the first people to find this place.

Kennecott Mine - The Kennecott mining town is preserved in the Wrangell-St Elias National Park in Alaska. This should give you an idea of how a mill looked with the clapboard still intact.
Kennecott Mine – The National Park Service has preserved the Kennecott mining in the Wrangell-St Elias National Park in Alaska. This photo should give you an idea of how a mill looked with the clapboard still intact.

In Alaska, I visited a similar mill at the Kennecott Mine in the Wrangell Saint Elias National Park. At this location, the Park Service keeps that building in an arrested state of decay, and it still has the red clapboard siding. I wanted to show you how the Senator stamp mill might have looked while it was running, so I’m including my Alaska photo.

For this week’s featured image—that I call Stamp Mill—I wanted to show the building and its environment, which is hard to do while standing inside of it. So, I took this shot from the far side of the Hassayampa River Canyon as the sun hung low in the western sky. I was lucky in that the remaining silver paint glowed in the afternoon sun, which makes the frame pop from the background.

You can see a larger version of Stamp Mill on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you like it. Be sure to come back next week when we present the final image from our drive on the Senator Highway.

Until next time — jw

Shadows, Boulders, and Cracks Picture of the Week

Queen Anne and I had only ventured into the Bradshaw’s once before this month’s Senator Highway adventure. We borrowed a friend’s 4wd tow truck and wanted to see how well it performed on dirt roads. We decided to drive to Crown King for Sunday brunch. It was a horrible experience—lunch was nice, but the track was one long washboard. The truck bounced so much that it took a week for our eyes to stop vibrating. That was before Google Maps—actually, it was before computers—so we added another unnecessary 50 miles to the trip. Anne swore off dirt roads forever.

That’s too bad because the Bradshaws (named for trailblazer William D. Bradshaw) fascinated me since I moved to Phoenix. From the valley, they’re the high range to the north. When you head Flagstaff, they’re the first pine-covered mountains that you pass. The Sunset Point rest stop, which is at the range’s eastern flank, is where I feel that we’ve at last got past the city limits. Finally, during the summer monsoons, they create the storms that bring rain to the valley (as I look out my window today, I see what could be our first seasonal storm—and it’s moving south from the Bradshaws—if it gets here at all).

Whenever we’ve stopped at Sunset Point, and I had to wait for you-know-who to finish up in the bathroom, I always looked up at the mountains and mistakenly thought that they were dry and deserted. I’d think to myself, “It’s too bad there aren’t any fishing lakes up there.” On our recent trip, I found out that I was wrong because back roads lace through the range leading to former mining towns filled with summer cabins. There are even a couple of small lakes—but they’re so close to Prescott, I’d classify them as town lakes. Perhaps it’s just as well that there’s no destination up there, because if there were a big lake up there, then there’d be freeways and planned communities around it.

Shadows, Boulders, and Cracks - This is the simplest essence of what I found interesting about a pair of granite boulders south of Groom Creek, Arizona.
Shadows, Boulders, and Cracks – This is the purest essence of what I found interesting about a pair of granite boulders south of Groom Creek, Arizona.

As Anne and I continued exploring Senator Highway, we came across a boulder field south of Groom Creek. I find these large lumps of granite interesting, but they’re all over the state, and my rock collection is vast. I hear people say, “Meh. It’s another rock picture.” So, for this week’s featured image, I tried to show just the part that made me raise the camera to my eye. In the case of this week’s featured image, that I call Shadows, Boulders, and Cracks, it was the texture of the massive rocks, the delicate shadows of the deciduous trees, and the fracture that splits the right sphere in half. Even without seeing the entire boulder, you instinctively know that you couldn’t skip one of these pebbles across Goldwater Lake.

You can see a larger version of Shadows, Boulders, and Cracks on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you like it. Be sure to come back next week when we present another image from the Senator Highway going south from Prescott.

Until next time — jw

Road Bend Picture of the Week

Although I’ve tried my best to hold back time, the season has changed,  and it’s summer again in the desert. Summer’s dog days are the worst time to be photographing our arid home. Except for the brief respite at either end of the day, the bright sun and ozone combine to wash the colors away. It’s like seeing the world through a 2% milk bottle—the glass ones, not the cartons. You need polarizing sunglasses to force the blue to show in the sky again.

We desert-rats are nothing if not adaptive. Like all of the other Sonoran critters, we hide in our holes during the day. For example, the Round-tailed Ground Squirrel escapes the day heat in his den by sleeping splayed-out on his back. I do the same thing, and I’d show you photographic evidence except I’d be banned forever from the Internet. The other thing we do is migrate. Even during this pandemic, Highway U.S. 93 was a parade of boats heading north towards the rivers and lakes on this holiday weekend.

When we were deciding on a project for July, Queen Anne and I followed a similar logic. We looked for someplace cooler—trust me, 90º is cooler than 110º. We scoured our maps for a place nearby in the mountains, a location that wouldn’t have crowds yet be accessible. We settled on the Senator Highway that runs from Prescott south into the Bradshaw Mountains.

Road Bend - Bright yellow-leaved deciduous trees obscure what's beyond the road on the Senator Highway south of Prescott, Arizona.
Road Bend – Bright yellow-leaved deciduous trees obscure what’s beyond the road on the Senator Highway south of Prescott, Arizona.

Until this month, I didn’t know why there was a dirt road called the Senator Highway. I imagined that it was a route that our state assemblymen traveled when Arizona’s capital swapped several times between Prescott and Phoenix—foolish me. Instead, it’s just another mine road that the miners built it to transport ore and supplies between the Senator Mine and Prescott. If you’re skilled at navigating the Bradshaws, you can technically get to Congress via the Senator Highway.

I find the pine-covered mountains, like the Bradshaw’s, hard to shoot. The trees get in the way. I mean, how many different ways can you get an image of ponderosa pine tree bark? I hunt for edges—splashes of color, an opening to the horizon, or building ruins. That’s what I’m showing in this week’s featured image. At a bend on the highway, I saw some trees (I believe Arizona Ash) with bright yellow-green leaves shinning in the sun against the duller blue-green evergreens. I liked how they obscured the path. My mind wants to find out what’s beyond. It’s a classic leading-line perspective trick, and I find the dappled shade on the road a bonus. I named the first image for our July project Road Bend because it’s a simple title for a simple photo.

You can see a larger version of Road Bend on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you like it. Be sure to come back next week when we present another image from the Senator Highway outside of Prescott.

Until next time — jw

Kirkland Junction Picture of the Week

A couple of decades ago, there was a TV ad where a sleepy-eyed baker got out of bed and made his way to his Dunkin Donuts store, and as he made his way, he mumbled, “Time to Make the Doughnuts.” I felt sorry for the poor guy and wished he could crawl back in bed. But, if your business is selling coffee and deep-fried cake to a morning crowd, you gotta’ make some product. You’ve got to work your schedule.

In photography, the quality of light is vital for making memorable images. Pictures that stand apart from the millions posted daily on Instagram. This topic is one that I’ve covered in my writings several times. Any subject looks better when you capture it when the light is warmer, and the shadows are longer—known as the golden hours. Those happen after sunrise when healthy people are still in bed, and before sunset when smart people have sunset cocktails. When I go out on a photo shoot, I try to time my sessions using that light.

The light is even more complicated in Arizona. Because we live in a longitude closer to the equator, that golden hour dramatically shrinks in summers. To further complicate things,  the desert afternoons are too hot for scouting subjects. That’s why I chose the early morning when Fred and I went to Placerita. To get there at the right time, we left before sunrise. Unfortunately, by the time we arrived, the clouds moved in and took away the color, so I made a second trip last week. This time I was on my own because Fred was nursing an old war wound, and Queen Anne doesn’t get out of bed unless there’s a jewelry store involved.

So, in the darkness, I packed my gear into Archie and drove north on State Route 89 with a USB stick full of fresh tunes and a hot mug of coffee in the cupholder. In Yarnell, the sky was bright with a line of clouds leftover from the day before. I watched the color deepen as I passed through Peeples Valley. By the time I arrived at Kirkland Junction, I had to stop so that I could get a shot. After turning onto Wagoner Road—this month’s back road—there was enough light to show color on the ground. I lined up the scene so that some abandoned structures were under the pink clouds.

A set of abandoned buildings at Kirkland Junction underneath beautiful pink clouds.
This week’s photo is of a set of abandoned buildings at Kirkland Junction underneath beautiful pink clouds. The mountain in the background is Kirkland Peak.

That’s how I took the last photo in June’s series. I call this week’s featured image, Kirkland Junction. Interestingly, this month we showed the subject of this month’s journey from the end to the beginning. We began the month at our destination—Placerita-and worked to the road’s start. It’s like that movie Momento.  You knew the protagonist was guilty of the murder right up to the story’s beginning that was at the film’s end. I was so confused by the time the movie was over; I had to think about it for weeks. I hope that I haven’t done that for you.

You can see a larger version of Kirkland Junction on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy it. Next week, we’ll begin a new journey on a different, less-traveled highway. I hope you’ll join our expedition.

Until next time — jw

Seal Mountain Picture of the Week

I wouldn’t have made a good prospector if I had lived during the Weaver Mountain mining boom. Since it is Father’s Day, a quote from my dad seems especially appropriate today. “You’re nothing but a lazy bastard, and you will never amount to anything.” Thanks, dad. I’ll cherish those words forever. He’s right, though. I don’t even like to water our flowers much less pick at a mountainside. In last week’s post, I was shocked to see in the photograph of my hand, a callous below my ring. Where did that come from—I haven’t touched a hand tool in decades.

If mining is off my list, what else did men do to earn wages back then? To find out, I continued my exploration of the Weaver Range east side by following the other side-roads near Placerita. This week I drove the Wagoner Road down to the Hassayampa River. I’ve never seen that area, and besides, I might get different scenes for my drone film. I struck pay dirt (sorry for the mining metaphor).

The Wagoner Road descends the east slope of the Weavers into a river valley where the Hassayampa flows above ground. As expected, where there’s surface water, there’s farming—or in this case ranching—big ranches. They’re stacked along the river one after another. They have well-maintained fences, impressive gates, and lots of black cattle (although I did see a herd that had Wagyu markings). The valley reminded me of north Scottsdale when it was mostly Arabian horse farms. It would be an ideal place to live except for grocery shopping. There are only two ways out, the 38-mile road back to Kirkland Junction or crossing over the Bradshaw Mountains on the Senator Highway (Wickenburg is only 20 miles distant in a private aircraft, which is possible given the size of these estates).

Seal Mountain - A remote mountain only seen in an obscure valley is the model that was used on the Arizona emblem.
Seal Mountain – A remote mountain only seen in an obscure valley is the model that was used on the Arizona emblem.

Since I was scouting new views of the Weaver peaks, I found a doozy. It’s the mountain that is in the background of this week’s featured image that I call Seal Mountain. Every Arizonian should know this mountain by heart because it was the model used for the Arizona State Seal. In 1912, who knew it existed? The only place you can see this peak is from the ranches in this remote valley. I’m impressed, however, that my local mountain range is represented on the Arizona seal.

The Arizona Seal - If you squint hard, you can see the similarity.
The Arizona Seal – If you squint hard, you can see the similarity. Personally, I would have chosen Four Peaks.

So, could I have been a rancher instead of working in a mine? MMM—maybe not. That kind of work still involves toiling with shovels, rakes, other hand tools, and even possibly riding a horse. Horses don’t like me. The last one that I road said, “Oof,” when I got on. Let’s take a closer look at that state seal—shouldn’t there be a programmer or a Web designer on it? Come to think of it, there isn’t even a real estate agent, and that’s the number one Arizona job.

You can see a larger version of Seal Mountain on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy it. Come back next week to see what else we found along the road to Placerita.

Until next time — jw