Fall color report: Pinaleños/Mount Graham

The Pinaleños are especially colorful at this time of year. Starting at the altitude corresponding with the Wet Canyon Bridge (location of the cell-phone camera photo), the few walnut trees hiding in creeks are turning yellow, sycamores, a bright festive orange, and oaks, red. Up a bit higher the bright yellow aspens are almost glowing back at the sun

It was 68 degrees Fahrenheit last weekend, ideal conditions for a hike along Ash Creek. If I didn't spend so much time taking pictures I might have made it to the bottom of the falls. Lizards and snakes must like the weather, too, as they're still very active. Ferns are turning brown and dying back at high altitudes, but flowering plants are still hanging on, and some odd Sky Island refugees--including a geranium-like plant I don't recall ever seeing--are in full bloom. More photos to follow when my Kodachromes return from Dwayne's and I finish the roll of Ektar 120 in the Yashica-Mat.


Word to the wise: If you leave a nice lens on top of your car, be sure that it's inside your car before you drive off. And if a Canon f/1.4 50mm prime is spotted 3/4 of the way up the Swift Trail, it's probably mine.

Black Sheep Cave, Tucson Mountains

There aren't many places in the U.S.A. where anyone can simply walk up to a sensitive archaeological site, but no matter where you live in Arizona, chances are high that one is nearby. (There also aren't many places where the Border Patrol simply runs over sensitive archaeological sites as they've done to Santa Ana del Chiquiburitac; accessibility has its drawbacks.)

Black Sheep Cave, a little "hole" in the Tucson Mountains, may not tell us much about the quotidian life of the contact-era Native Americans--probably O'Odham--who drew on its walls, but it is certainly visually impressive. And it's a short walk from a few well-known trails. No, I won't post directions on the Internet, but I will show you photos.

Dos Cabezas

In the modern era of government bailouts, no town of three hundred--certainly not one with a Wells Fargo stage stop--would be allowed to fail.

I've posted another photoessay to Associated Content, this one a shoot of Dos Cabezas done during a Wings over Willcox lunch break. Portions were supposed to be submitted to Jones Photo's winter contest, but Dwayne's took their sweet time with processing and I missed the deadline.

Arizona is full of places like Dos Cabezas, funky "ghost towns" that are still inhabited. Were I to return, I'd approach the subject rather differently. Rather than so heavily emphasizing old individual structures I'd show Dos Cabezas as it is. As I'm planning on going to Whitewater Draw before the sandhill cranes leave for the season, I'll be in the area again, and might take a roll of Kodachrome 64 to shoot this second, more interesting essay.