Category: Arizona

Broken Cottonwood Picture of the Week

Well, I might as well tell you right off, because you’re going to find out anyway. I’m cheating on this month’s project. I didn’t search out a new back road for us to explore. Instead, I just drove up the highway to Peeples Valley and photographed old cottonwood trees that I’ve meant to shoot for the last couple of years. I guess you could consider Arizona 89 off the beaten path if you’re used to driving I-17 to Prescott, but it’s the way we go to Costco all of the time, and it’s the official route for every car and motorcycle club tour every weekend.

The reason I shirked my responsibility this month is that I had to put Queen Anne down—wait, that’s not right—oh yeah, she had knee replacement surgery, and I’ve been wearing two extra uniforms since. I’ve been her nurse and maid, and quite frankly, I prefer the white stockings because my toes keep getting caught in the fishnets.

When she first came home from the hospital, her knee looked like a sewed up bag of haggis—that’s the Scottish delicacy of oats and various animal parts boiled in a sheep’s stomach. It was black and blue with stitches that could make Frankenstein jealous. She was all doped up on pain medication and spent most of her time in bed. When she did get up, she’d hobble on her walker to the bathroom or eat a cup of food.

In less than two weeks, she’s moving much better and can make her way through the house without assistance. Now she’s going to rehab three times a week where they ask her, “How far can you bend your knee before it hurts?” After she demonstrates, they grab her leg and bend it further. The whole town of Wickenburg knows when that happens—sort of like the Pit of Despair in The Princess Bride. It seems to work though, because she has more movement each day, and she’ll soon be back to normal. I do think shes enjoying being waited on hand and foot because she milks it for all she can get. She even claims the doctor said that ice cream was medicinal.

Enough about her, let’s talk about photography. As I said, we frequently travel through Peeples Valley, where there is a large cattle ranch—Maughan Ranches—with white fences lining each side of the highway. In the green pastures, there are some very old cottonwood trees that I find appealing, so on a Saturday, when I was able to escape, I drove up and spent a moment behind the camera. After looking at images on my screen, I decided that since it’s winter and there’s no leaves or color, I would process them in black-and-white. In all, I think it shows the subjects off much stronger.

Broken Cottonwood - A pair of cottonwood trees, where one has fallen leaving the survivor leaning precariously in Peeples Valley, Arizona
Broken Cottonwood – A pair of cottonwood trees, where one has fallen leaving the survivor leaning precariously in Peeples Valley, Arizona

This week’s featured image is called Broken Cottonwood. It shows half a pair of old trees. One of them has fallen from decay or rot whose remains litters the ground. The second tree leans to the left to avoid crowding. Now that it stands alone, it leans precariously, like Grandpa McCoy on his cane. There’s a tension in this shot that the little windmill on the right seems to balance.

You can see a larger version of Broken Cottonwood on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you like it. Be sure to come back next week for another cottonwood portrait from Peeples Valley.

Until next time — jw

Grand Wash Cliffs Picture of the Week

I love those DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteers. I have about a dozen of them stashed on my office bookshelf, one for each state that we’ve traveled. Whenever Anne and I go on one of our jaunts, I toss at least one in the truck. I try to be careful with them, so they’ll last, but I’m regularly replacing my Arizona edition because I use it so often.

Last month while looking for new places to explore, I realized that there are four pages in the Arizona Gazetteer where I’ve never been, not in the 48 years that I’ve called Arizona home. The pages are easy to find, as they’re the first two and the last two. The areas covered by these pages are The Arizona Strip—east of Nevada and south of Utah north of the Colorado River—and the southeast corner of the state. I’ve never been to the Chiricahuas. Isn’t that hard to believe? I’ve decided to fix that by making trips to our northwest this year, and the southeast corner next year.

With that in mind, February’s topic will be the trip that her majesty and I made to Pearce Ferry this week. It’s not a difficult trip as you get off Interstate 40 on Kingman’s Stockton Hill Road. You go 40 miles north on that road, then you turn right on the Pearce Ferry Road and continue until the Colorado River stops you at the other end. All but the last nine miles are paved.

What you’ll see along the way is the Great Basin Desert. More like Nevada than the Sonoran Desert that we’re used to. Stockton Hill Road runs along the east side of the Hualapai Valley and Red Lake—one of the four natural lakes in Arizona. In winter, it even comes with water, the rest of the time it’s dry. The Pearce Ferry Road section crosses the valley and runs along the Grand Wash Cliffs to Meadview. That’s where the gravel-dirt road descends to the River.

Grand Wash Cliffs - A storm front moves over the Grand Wash Cliffs at Pearce Ferry.
Grand Wash Cliffs – A storm front moves over the Grand Wash Cliffs at Pearce Ferry.

Besides the towering Grand Wash Cliffs and muddy Colorado emerging from the Grand Canyon, there’s nothing much happening at the Ferry. Until a couple of years ago, it was the place where Grand Canyon rafters hauled out of Lake Mead. Because of the ongoing drought, the lake is so low that the boat ramp is high and dry. Now boaters have to use South Cove. It’s 23 miles away by road, but double that by water.

I took this week’s featured image near the deserted boat ramp. It shows the colorful Grand Wash Cliffs under a brooding sky. The storm front that you see greeted us on our arrival and followed us home, bringing rain to Congress the next day. I call this image Grand Wash Cliffs (At Pearce Ferry).

I’m also including a second image this week at no extra charge. I wanted to show the boat ramp struggling to reach the muddy river. The next launching place is at South Cove around the peninsula in the photo’s background. By the time the river passes South Cove, the river flows into Lake Mead, and most of the silt drops out of the water, so its color is blue (and high white banks because of the low water level). This second photo is for reference, so I called it Dry Ramp.

Pearce Ferry Boat Ramp - Lake Mead's water is low enough that the boat ramp isn't usable.
Pearce Ferry Boat Ramp – Lake Mead’s water is low enough that the boat ramp isn’t usable.

You can see a larger version of Grand Wash Cliffs on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy seeing it. Join us next week as we drive home with stops along the way to photograph more lovely scenery in Hualapai Valley.

Until next time — jw

Poachie Yucca Bloom Picture of the Week

Sometimes it’s frustrating to talk to foreigners—that is, people that live outside of Arizona, especially someone that has never visited here. When they find out you’re a Zonie, they turn their noses up, and usually, something like this falls out of their mouth, “How can you tolerate that heat, sand, and barren desert?” To them, our state is one homogenous sandbox inside an oven. They never ask, “Where in Arizona do you live?” That’s because no one has educated them about how diverse the state is.

Arizona has every climate zone but two: the Tropic and the Arctic zones. If you want to freeze your butt off, you’re out of luck, but San Diego is a good enough substitute for the tropics—at least for us. If you need something more hot and sweaty, you can always rent Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death from Amazon, but I digress. Seriously, we have snow-capped mountains, high plateaus, transition grasslands, and four kinds of deserts. What more do you need?

After making these back road junkets for over a year, I’m finding out that there are even pockets of places that are different than what I expected to find there. Locations with their micro-climate, because they get more or less sun, wind, or rain than their surroundings. That’s what I got from this month’s trip over the Poachie Mountains. We saw water in a dry river, and evergreens growing alongside tall saguaros.

Poachie Yucca Bloom - A yucca high in the Poachie Mountains that still has its flower stalk.
Poachie Yucca Bloom – A yucca high in the Poachie Mountains that still has its flower stalk.

That brings us to this week’s featured image. It’s a photo of the ubiquitous yucca, a plant found throughout the southwest. They’re most photogenic when in bloom, which is spring. The yucca sends out a shoot with white edible flowers (but not raw) that fall off after pollination, and the seeds disperse in the wind. After all of the sex part is done, the stalk dries and falls off. In this case, the stem is still there, long after I believed I could get a shot like this.

Another thing about photographing yucca, they are always too far of a hike, surrounded by other plants, or not as symmetrical as this specimen. Whoever planted this one put it in a spot specifically for lazy photographers. I tip my hat to you, Mister Gardener.

You can see a larger version of Poachie Yucca Bloom on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing it. Join us next week as we travel down another one of Arizona’s back roads.

Until next time — jw

Cholla Bay Picture of the Week

After being stopped by a river that rarely has flowing water, we spent some time along the bank of the Big Sandy, watching the calm, almost clear water flowing on its way to Alamo Lake. Queen Anne broke out a couple of water bottles, and we shared a trail bar while perusing the map to find our options.

This would have been a perfect picnic spot if we had packed a basket. Imagine sitting on a blanket in the middle of 17 Mile Drive, where it disappears beneath a river. We could see a couple of houses nearby, and later, I found out that we were in Greenwood—the site of yet another abandoned mining community. In its heyday, some three hundred souls lived and worked here. The town—named after the abundance of Palo Verde trees—didn’t last long because of its low-quality ore.

We turned around and started our journey home with the day getting late. We dallied along the way, making many stops for photos. Before the road began the ascent up the mountain, I spotted where the Big Sandy River had scoured 30-foot cliffs out of the mud banks. The formation was nearly circular, and you could imagine the raging water churning in a back eddy, a swirling whirlpool flowing against the river’s current. A large grove of Teddy Bear Cholla was growing inside the containment, so I grabbed my camera and hiked in for a shot.

Cholla Bay - The most dangerous cactus will attack you at the slightest provocation.
Cholla Bay – The most dangerous cactus will attack you at the slightest provocation.

I have a love/hate relationship with the cholla cactus. When backlit, it has a soft fuzzy look that makes you want to jump into it like a pile of autumn leaves. It’s also known as Jumping Cholla, but it doesn’t do that. Its outer joints are fragile—hair trigger, if you will—and the tips break off from the main plant with the slightest disturbance. The needles are barbed, so if you get some into your skin, you have to pull them out with pliers—one by one.

Whenever I’m near Cholla, I move slowly and cautiously. I watch the ground for snakes, cow pies, and cholla balls. It’s like walking a tight wire. I don’t look up until I stop walking. So imagine how startled I was in the middle of this field when a wild gray burro popped his head up and snorted. He was just as frightened as I was and quickly galloped off to the far side of the road, but it took all my self-control not to stumble back through the cactus patch. Once the two jackasses safely separated, I regained my composure and took this picture, which I called Cholla Bay.

You can see a larger version of Cholla Bay on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing it. Join us next week when we finish our trip to the Poachie Mountains.

Until next time — jw

Greenwood Peak Picture of the Week

I have two reasons for these monthly jaunts on Arizona roads I’ve never traveled. The first is to give me a reason to get out and shoot. The other purpose is to force me to explore places I haven’t seen, see what’s out there, and see what I haven’t seen.

What was new to me on this trip was seeing saguaro growing among the Juniper. Think about it. The mix of those two plants never happens. The saguaro stops growing at about 3000 feet because they don’t tolerate frost. To be in a field of Juniper, you’d have to travel to Sedona, Prescott, or Payson. I yammered on and on about this phenomenon, Anne, as 17 Mile Road twisted up into the Poachie Range. At one point, I was so confused that I stopped and pulled out my Garmin to check the elevation.

Greenwood Peak - One of the two prominent peaks in the Poachie Mountain Range. This one can be seen if you travel through Wikieup.
Greenwood Peak – One of the two prominent peaks in the Poachie Mountain Range. Greenwood Peak can be seen on the western horizon if you travel to Wikieup.

The Poachie Range is 30 miles long, and you see them west of U.S. 93 between Nothing and Wikieup. They’re not very tall, with its tallest peak being Arrastra Mountain at 4807 feet. So, I usually wouldn’t expect to see Juniper this low. When I checked my GPS, the elevation was 3600 Feet. All this leads me to believe that winters aren’t severe here, but more rain falls here than on the desert floors. Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

The road we traveled crossed the Poachie Range south of its prominent northern peak—Greenwood Peak. It’s the subject of this week’s featured image. It only rises to an altitude of 4300 feet, but it still provides a handsome backdrop for the unusual mixture of cactus and evergreens.

You can see a larger version of Greenwood Peak on its Web Page by clicking here. I hope you enjoy viewing it. Join us next week as we finish our trip to the Harquahala Mountains.

Until next time — jw