Rain held off, fog burned away and a few shafts of morning light pierced the cloud cover shrouding Cathedral Rock in the distance, giving the Crescent Moon Ranch near Sedona’s Red Rock Crossing even more of an inviting sheen than normal.
The product tester, a tawny grizzly bear named Cypress weighing on the far side of 500 pounds, went at the Grubcan tooth and claw, with gusto, not necessarily because of a strong ursine work ethic but because, well, she’s a freaking bear and there was food inside that camping canister.
For the past 17 months or so I have been unable to go to my favorite place in the world and do my favorite things, namely fish and hunt, because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Daily Sun’s weekly trails feature, a staple in these pages since the time of late editor Randy Wilson, will be going on hiatus for a few months.
The acoustics of a run or hike contribute much to my enjoyment — the cawing of a crow, the rustle of a darting Abert’s squirrel, the satisfying crunch of my footfalls on a needle-cushioned path. Likewise, few things can spoil an outing like the rumbling of big rigs on the interstate or the r…
Finally, at long last, after an epic quest worthy of Hesse’s Siddartha or some such New Agey icon, after too many Sedona-sized disappointments to recount here, I have experienced the power of a vortex. I felt a current flowing within me, electromagnetic waves connecting with my corpus at som…
No early symptoms, no cure, always fatal, remains in the environment for decades and is rapidly spreading among wild and fenced deer throughout the United States.
Deprivation can lead to indulgence and, boy, was I primed when the forests and trails reopened last week after 15 days of staring longingly at the Peaks, pining pathetically for the pines while making do with old flame Buffalo Park and sections of the FUTS.
Decades ago, when my face was a smooth peach instead of the withered gourd it is now, I needed to know exactly where I was going on trail runs.
Saturday morning at 6:30, the Buffalo Park lot already had maxed out. By 8, a conga line of cars stretched most of the way down Gemini Road.
Editor's Note: Due to wildfires and the temporary closure of the Coconino National Forest, several sections of the Arizona Trail have been closed until further notice. Check the website aztrail.org/category/closures-reroutes for trail status. We will continue to run weekly trail stories for …
At the risk of being branded a Flagstaff-centric snob, I must admit that in the past two years I had almost forgotten that Bill Williams Mountain existed.
Some people slag on me because I occasionally stray far afield when detailing trails, the common refrain being, OMG, I’m not going all the way to Camp Verde.
Oh sure, you can get to the East Pocket Lookout Tower easily enough. Just hop in your car, preferably one with high clearance, and drive south on Woody Mountain Road some 24 miles until it ends. That’s all it takes. Enjoy.
Back East, they are bracing for the invasion of the 17-year cicadas. But, around here, we’re already seeing the annual infestation of the Sprinter vans.
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Something deep in my knotted psyche compels me to ferret out any and all fire lookout towers in the Coconino National Forest (Kaibab, too) and to climb those (occasionally) rickety steps to gaze upon the (often) tree-lined horizons.
My, what a lovely day. A Magritte sky, scattered puffy cotton clouds against an impossibly blue horizon, the San Francisco Peaks adding a vivid exclamation point.
Sprawl, that form of suburban blight that so dominates the Valley, always looks more stark and vast when viewed from on high.
Orienteering is not really my thing. In fact, I didn’t even know it was a thing until I looked it up and found this definition:
Humor in hiking guidebooks usually is about as plentiful as water on the Colorado Plateau, which is to say, hard to come by and exceedingly appreciated when found.
It is unfortunate that there is no such thing as a “new-trail smell,” akin to the new-car smell that’s so alluring they make cologne and air-freshener based on the fragrance.
It is unfortunate that there is no such thing as a “new-trail smell,” akin to the new-car smell that’s so alluring they make cologne and air-freshener based on the fragrance.
There occasionally comes a point while attempting a new trail course — a loop cobbled together from merely squiggly lines and tiny-font forest road numbers on a map — when you reach what I like to call a Robert Frost Moment.