Major Gold Strike Along the Hassayampa!

HAS Sa yampa a River of Gold, Game and Grain and that's no lie

In the mountains of northcentral Arizona, not far from the resplendent old Territorial capital of Prescott, stands a deep, winding cave that would do very nicely as a set for a homegrown version of Lord of the Rings. It is lined with gold nuggets, precious gems and the armor-clad bones of conquistadores. From the mouth of that great cave roars a mighty river. It jets out hundreds of yards into the sheer air, then clatters down a deep, secret canyon, spills over a staircase of mountains and plateaus until, far down on the desert floor, it forms a vast lake that is dotted, at high season, with oceangoing cruise ships from many nations.

Scratch all that. Rewind. Start over, with apologies. You see, I have lately been imbibing the waters of the Hassayampa River. By doing so-according to a centuries-old Arizona tradition - I have made myself susceptible to telling some dreadful lies, if not just some pleasant but transparent fibs, what the oldtimers called "Yampers." But I'm not the only one who's been affected by the Hassayampa's truth-bending powers, to judge by this sign in Wickenburg's Horseshoe Cafe, just a stone's throw from the river's left bank: "Cowboys never lie, they just improve the truth." The origins of the Hassayampa-as-fibfactory legend are lost in time. What is certainis that the legend provided fuel for a longstanding, yet mostly good-natured rivalry between the upstream town of Prescott, which indeed lies close to the river's headwaters, and the midcourse town of Wickenburg. Around the end of the 19th century, some Prescottonians, apparently bent on securing a respectable reputation for their fair town, began to circulate a version of the legend-which the Prescott Courier attributed to the indigenous Yavapai Indians - that exempted themselves from committing untruthfulness. Water consumed from "above the crossing" - that is, north of Wickenburg -was safe, they said, whereas anyone drinking the stuff from other places south along the Hassayampa was sure to become a fibber. Wickenburgers, naturally enough, spun their own version of the story, accusing the upcountry folks of being allergic to the truth, unlike the virtuous inhabitants of the desert floor. The Arizona Republic writer who, in a bit of doggerel from 1896, distributed tale-spinning talent to all concerned and probably just added fuel to the neighborly fire: The Hassayampa's water is a blessing to the land (In spite of shocking tales with which it's cursed) That he ever after lies in a way to win first prize, Who quaffs the Hassayampa to quench his thirst.

It's thirsty country, and the quaffers are many. The truth about the river is this: The Hassayampa, in fact, begins high in the ponderosa pine-clad Bradshaw Mountains just south of Prescott, that handsome and historic town. The river's sources are found on no map, as far as I know, which was one reason that Richard Sims, the director of the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott, and I decided to make a project of pinpointing them in August 2000. Using what map knowledge we could find in the museum's archives and combining it with a little commonsensical orienteering along Mount Union, a 7,979-foot-tall ridge above the hamlet of Potato Patch, we set out on a grand adventure.

[PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 42 AND 43] Barely a puddle hidden in a forest of conifers and aspen trees, the Hassayampa River originates near Potato Patch in the Bradshaw Mountains south of Prescott. [RIGHT] A profusion of white lupines brightens the shadows of an aspen wood on Mount Davis in the Bradshaw Mountains.

What we eventually found, after crisscrossing the mountain's flanks for a few hours, was a pleasant surprise: a little spring bubbling up through reeds and grass, enlivened by swirling dragonflies, butterflies and bumblebees, feeding a field of wildflowers, and generally gladdening the scenery along an otherwise dusty trail. Richard and I thought it was a fine discovery and, emboldened by long drinks of water from the spring, we found ourselves spinning a mighty epic about the dangers we braved in finding the source. We soon put our heroic story aside, however, when we rounded a clump of brushy undergrowth on the back side of the spring and found in our path an old arrastra: a wooden boom bound to an iron ring.

We were not the first to drink from the river's source: At least one 19th-century prospector had beaten us to it, judging by this boom, to which long ago a miner would have yoked a mule to crush rocks in the hope of separating ore-in this case, gold. So we guessed that the arrastra dated to the Prescott-area gold rush, which began in 1863 and lasted for several years before eventually playing out.

That wealth might not have been discovered so early in Arizona's Territorial history had legendary explorer Joseph Walker not grown tired of some Yamp-

Others told around a campfire down near Wickenburg by a Mojave Indian named Iretaba. Walker had asked whether there was any hunting to be had up along the upper Hassayampa, and Iretaba replied with words to the effect of, “No, it’s a terrible place, no game to be had anywhere. I’ll show you some much better country out to the west.” You can’t blame Iretaba for wanting to keep that fine territory his little secret. But Walker decided to have a look for himself. He found plenty of deer and elk in the forested canyons through which he passed, and around which State Route 89 now twists and bends, providing spectacular views of the Hassayampa drainage. Certain of an ample food supply, Walker then turned his men loose to prospect through the side canyons along the Bradshaws and Sierra Prieta. When they brought back gold, a race was on that forever changed the face of Arizona.

Despite his irritation with Iretaba, Walker and his companions—among them explorer Paulino Weaver, for whom Prescott’s Weaver Creek is named—took pains to establish good relations with the Yavapai, Mojave and Tonto Apache people who lived along the Hassayampa.

The landscape hasn’t changed much since that day. The broad plateau that runs between the Bradshaws to the east and the Weaver Mountains to the west, extending about 40 miles by 40 miles, is punctuated here and there by picturesque little towns—Yarnell, Kirkland Junction, Skull Valley and tiny Wilhoit, where a long-abandoned gas station still advertises

high-octane gasoline at 32 cents a gallon, a damper of its own kind.

But mostly that wide tableland boasts only scattered, well-cared-for ranches, as well as a couple of one-room schoolhouses and country markets. The little dirt tracks that radiate from State 89 are bumpy but negotiable for anyone who doesn't mind being bounced around a bit. The side trips they offer, to places such as Minnehaha and Crown King, are a back road enthusiast's delight.

Here, along the road to Minnehaha Creek, the Hassayampa broadens, collecting water during wet seasons from other streams along the 30-mile length of the Bradshaws. The flow was evidently good enough in past times that the Arizona Territorial Legislature bankrolled a $600,000 earthen dam just outside the hamlet of Walnut Grove. The dam didn't last long, though: On February 22, 1890, following a long rainfall, it burst, killing more than 50 people who lived downstream, and washing bodies, it is said, all the way down to the Colorado River far to the west.

A few years earlier, a less tragic event demonstrated to the residents of Wickenburg just how powerful the river in flood could be. Late on an August afternoon, a monsoon delivered a cloudburst to the Hassayampa River Canyon a few miles above town. By midnight, the Hassayampa was a mile wide and 15 feet deep-an impressive sight, especially considering that a few wagonloads of valuable freight bound for Phoenix were now floating off toward Gila Bend, in the wrong direction to arrive at their planned destination.

Wickenburg seldom sees the Hassayampa flow with that much force these days, but signs along the river's banks there attest to its importance to local history and culture. It was there that, early one hot April morning in 2003, Richard Sims and I met again to explore the wild country through which the river passes as it leaves the Weaver Mountains and drops down to meet the desert floor.

Close to town, the river dives underground, but not too deeply; we turned up a shovelful of wet dirt after digging just a few inches into the bed. But only 5 miles away toward the mountains to the north and east, now in the protected Hassayampa River Canyon Wilderness, the river flows merrily along the surface.

HAS Sa yampa

Richard and I were astonished at the variety of wildlife we saw in the stream and along its saguaroand paloverde-lined banks: herons and hummingbirds, chipmunks and coyotes, ringtails and rabbits, even a rosy boa constrictor out basking in the sun.

It takes a sturdy vehicle or a good pair of hiking boots, as well as a nonchalant attitude toward snakes, to get into that tangled terrain, where the river flows among granite hills and broken boulders past such wonderfully named, faraway places as Jesus Canyon, Amazon Gulch and Slim Jim Creek.

It takes less effort and less wear and tear on truck, mule or hiking boots-to see the Hassayampa in equally full splendor off U.S. Route 60, just south of Wickenburg. There the river emerges aboveground again to flow through a dense gallery forest of cottonwood and willow trees, the air above it vibrant with scores of bird species, the grassy banks whispering in the wake of passing deer, raccoons, lizards and perhaps even a snake or two. Laced with signed loop trails, the Hassayampa River Preserve, owned and managed by The NatureConservancy, is an ideal place to understand just how sublime can be that rarest of rarities, flowing water in the desert.

As if to protect itself from the searing sun, the Hassayampa dives underground again soon after leaving the preserve's boundaries. Barring a soaking rainstorm of the kind the western Arizona desert sees only every decade or so, it flows underground for most of the remaining 30-odd miles of its course, until it surfaces again just a couple of miles from its junction with the Gila River southwest of Phoenix.

The birds, connoisseurs of such matters, know that good things await where those two streams join. Just across the Gila from the confluence, where the channel is a dense carpet of vegetation broken by occasional pools of water, stands a place known to discerning birders but little visited by others: Robbins Butte State Wildlife Area. A short hop over bumpy but well-kept dirt roads from State Route 85, the wildlife area boasts a year-round population of dozens of species, including waterbirds not often seen in drier climes, like egrets, herons, and if my Hassayampa-fed eyes didn't deceive me, even the odd seagull, presumably just visiting for the winter.

The Hassayampa is a small river, as rivers go, traveling only a little more than 60 miles from start tofinish. It spends much of its time away from prying eyes. It is not easy to get to its most beautiful reaches, and the river can be dangerous. Still, it has wielded a disproportionate spell over those who have come to know it-whether birdwatchers, hikers, gold-seekers, equestrians or storytellers-hoping to drink from its waters and be blessed with a store of tall tales in the bargain. Long may their stories endure-and long may the Hassayampa, river of fables, flow.

Tucson-based Gregory McNamee is fond of traveling the length of desert watercourses to see what stories he can turn up. He has been roaming the Hassayampa for years, and the tall tales are mounting.

Jack Dykinga, also of Tucson, says that after years of observing the Hassayampa's dry bed, it was a pleasure to explore the flowing portions of this living river that intermittently appears and disappears along its route south.