Scenic view 1/2 mile ahead

Níchííl

To fly, to cross that river

Peregrines and people seem to have the same aesthetic taste. Twice I have been on falcon research trips and had a companion turn to me with a slight shake of the head and a faraway look in his eye and say, 'They sure know where to live'.

—Dan O'Brien, The Rites of Autumn

In two dozen tries, we managed to get not a single photograph that showed the bird in focus, but this peregrine at Marble Canyon's Navajo Bridge reminded me, as peregrines so often do, of O'Brien's words. This place is hard but beautiful, a realm of rock, water, and air to which the peregrine is perfectly suited.

As I watched the peregrine soaring over Marble Canyon, it occurred to me—not for the first time—how limited, how restricted, how utterly earthbound we humans are as individuals. We cross this river through collective effort, at great expense and by dint of ingenuity. Prior to the construction of Navajo Bridge, the only crossing of the Colorado River between Moab, Utah and Needles, California—some five or six hundred river miles apart—was at nearby Lee's Ferry. Its establishment in 1871-72 had been at the direction of the Mormon church, and the church itself operated the ferry after the execution of John Lee for his involvement in the Mountain Meadows massacre. Clearly, the ability to cross the river was deemed of not just economic but also strategic importance by the region's settlers.

As important as it was, Lee's Ferry was unreliable, as both seasonal and episodic flooding affected its operation. When the original Navajo Bridge was completed in 1929, visitors and dignitaries came from all over the Southwest to view what was not only a feat of engineering but a vast leap forward in transportation—an all-weather crossing that permanently linked Utah and Arizona, that made it possible for men and their machines to effectively "fly" over the canyon at their convenience.

That original Navajo Bridge is now a pedestrian walkway, a second span for vehicular traffic having been completed in 1995 at an estimated cost of $15 million.

And the peregrines make it look so easy...

Wildflowers, northern Arizona

With many a flirt and flutter

Grand Canyon

Nice place to visit for elk, mule deer, and mountain chickadees.




And oh yes, there's a pretty big hole in the ground.

Picacho Peak

I've fallen way behind on posting; here's the next installment of our Southwestern trip.

Halfway through our stay in Marana, Jessica and I set out to climb Picacho Peak—yes, the name means "peak peak"—which rises about 1500 feet above the Sonoran desert floor. It's best known as the site of a Civil War skirmish and for spectacular profusions of Mexican poppy, both of which we were too late for.

We took the Hunter Trail, which the state park brochure describes as a "difficult" 2 mile hike. That's splitting the difference, in my opinion. The first half, to "the saddle" at 2960 feet, is a moderate hike; the second half, from the saddle to the peak at 3374 feet, is plenty difficult, more a legitimate climb than a hike. Permanent cables (vie ferrate) have been affixed in several places that would otherwise require technical equipment and the skill to use it. (I've since seen the route rated as a YDS Class 3: "Scrambling with increased exposure. A rope can be carried but is usually not required. Falls are not always fatal," which of course leaves open the possibility that they may be. And while I free-handed one or two of the cabled sections, the rest were not in any way optional.)

Jessica wrecked her knee several years ago playing volleyball, and has a well-developed fear of heights, so had never continued beyond the saddle. This time, though, she made it through a couple of via ferrata sections before throwing in the towel about halfway between the saddle and the summit. I was enormously proud of her for getting that far, and by the time I summitted and returned to her, immensely glad she had stopped when she did. Our descent (which actually involved another ascent from the back side to the saddle) was agonizingly slow as it was, and there were a few moments when I feared she wouldn't be able to make it on her own. (Visions of helicopter bills and a certain amount of native stubbornness kept her going.)

[One of the easier via ferrata sections]

[View from the summit, off toward Marana]

[Another view from the summit, this time looking southward. All the little drainages remind me of this piece by Jessica, though it was written about New Mexico.]

[This pickaxe was just off the trail, very near the summit. I have no idea why anyone would have carried it up this far—it certainly couldn't have been easy.]

Physical aspects of the climb aside, Picacho was fascinating from a naturalist's point of view. In addition to lots of lichen, we saw Yuma antelope squirrels and Abert's tassel-eared squirrels, long-tailed brush lizards and chuckwallas.

[Chuckwallas: female (top) and male]

Avian highlights included gila woodpeckers, gilded flickers, and lark buntings in the saguaro lowlands, rock wrens and canyon wrens on the cliffs, and broad-tailed hummingbirds feeding along the trail. White-throated swifts tumbled toward the desert floor as they mated in mid-air, and one rocketed past Jessica's head as she waited for me to return from the peak. Ravens, turkey vultures, and black vultures (I had forgotten their range extends into southern Arizona) soared above and below us, but the best birds of the day in my opinion were prairie falcons and peregrines, both of which were nesting on Picacho—prairies on the main peak, peregrines on the secondary peak.

[A raven traverses the cliffs]

[Peregrine (left) and prairie interacting]

[That little triangle at the center is the tail of a prairie falcon, going in for a landing at the eyrie; click to embiggen.]

 

[Saguaro marching up the mountain]