Incomparable Cabin Views

WITH A VIEW RUSTIC AND ROMANTIC FOREST CABINS FOR RENT

Sweeping views set the tone for a unique high-country getaway at Kendrick Cabin, located on the rolling meadows below the San Francisco Peaks.

Imagine warming hike-weary feet in front of a crack-ling woodstove, waking to birdsong and a pine-scented breeze, savoring a picnic lunch along a creek or lake. If you've ever fantasized of having a cabin in the woods, then hold onto your hiking hat—your dreams are about to come true.

Seven cabins in the Coconino, Coronado, Kaibab and Prescott national forests can be rented for family fun, romantic getaways and even company retreats. The cabins are available through a fee demo program that allows the Forest Service to reinvest rental income into maintenance and restoration, adding cabins as the program's popularity grows.

The cabins and their settings are as varied as rural Arizona, and each one has something special to offer. All are located near hiking, equestrian, biking or ski trails. Choose a cabin and make it your own for a couple days or a couple weeks by bringing touches of home: a rose from the garden, your favorite coffee mug, a cozy quilt for cool mountain evenings.

Three of the rental cabins stand within the Coconino National Forest. Rustic stone-and-wood Kendrick Cabin was built in the 1960s. This retired Forest Service fire guard station is in Kendrick Park, an open meadow with sweeping views of Arizona's tallest peaks. Grand Canyon's South Rim is 58 miles from the cabin's front porch. Flagstaff is 22 miles away.

Cabin guests can ski, hike, bike and ride horses against a mountain backdrop, peaks that once belched smoke and fire. The cabin lies in the San Francisco Volcanic Field, an 1,800-square-mile region of cinder cones, lava flows and the towering San Francisco Peaks. AgasSize (12,356 feet) and Humphreys (12,633 feet) were once a single volcano that may have erupted and collapsed a mere 400,000 years ago.

During snow season, Kendrick Cabin is a haven for skiers or snow-shoers. Up to 10 people can stay in the cabin's three bedrooms and generous living spaces. Knotty-pine paneling, a rocking chair and fireplace create a cozy atmosphere. A few miles away, the Flagstaff Nordic Center has miles of groomed cross-country ski trails and offers full-moon tours, skiing clinics and equipment rentals. Alpine skiers and snowboarders can head for the Arizona Snowbowl on the San Francisco Peaks.

Hikers can choose between two challenging wilderness trails to the fire lookout tower at the top of 10,418-foot Kendrick Peak, a lava dome formed by flowing magma. A shorter hike along the Lava River Cave trail leads into a chilly mile-long lava tube. Be prepared with flashlights, warm clothes and sturdy shoes-the uneven lava floor can be slippery and sharp, and the cave temperature hovers around 40 degrees, even in the summertime.

Fernow Cabin just might provide the definitive forest getaway. This rustic log structure with two bedrooms, loft and woodstove stands tucked into the world's largest ponderosa pine tree forest about 22 miles south of Flagstaff on Woody Mountain Road (Forest Service Road 231). The cabin was built in the 1970s as a guard station to house firefighters, ready to deploy at a moment's notice. A fire lookout reaches to the sky at nearby Turkey Butte, and trails leading into the Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness Area offer hawk's-eye views of Red Rock Country.

Those who want a closer look at the red rocks can stay in Crescent Moon Ranch House. Only 6 miles from Sedona, it might not be as isolated as other rental cabins, but it does feature the most stunning view-the majestic spires of Cathedral Rock, one of the most photographed scenes in Arizona.

The ranch house, built in 1938 in a Western Art Deco style, boasts two kitchens, three bedrooms and three baths, as well as an enclosed sunporch and large great room with a woodstove. It's popular with wedding parties, and often the bridal pair will repeat their vows outdoors in view of Cathedral Rock. Some say that one of the rocky spires looks like a man and woman standing back to back-forever joined in stone.Sedona's first residents settled along the crystal-clear waters of Oak Creek, raising fruit crops and livestock. A barn at Crescent Moon Ranch dates to a late-1800s home-stead. Some claim that the ranch house design was commissioned under a study with famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. For years, the Forest Service used the ranch for crew quarters and equipment storage until the house became the first Arizona property to join the Forest Service's nationwide cabin rental program.

Also rich in history, Kentucky Camp lies about 60 miles south-east of Tucson in the Coronado National Forest. Here, a century-old one-bedroom adobe offers the distinct experience of staying in a ghost town, the home of the Santa Rita Water and Mining Co., an ill-fated hydraulic gold mining venture in the oak-covered foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains. Historians refer to the adobe as "the honey-moon cabin," believing it was built for the mine engineer and his bride. Not long afterward, he died in a fall from the window of a Tucson hotel. Though his partners tried to keep the mine going, they gave up by 1912, and the buildings were subsequently used as a ranch headquarters.After acquiring Kentucky Camp in 1989, the Forest Service began restoring the abandoned buildings. During work weekends, volunteers labor alongside Forest Service historians to make adobe bricks or repair walls. Visitors to the camp include hikers, mountain bikers and backpackers traveling the Arizona Trail, which passes nearby.

[OPPOSITE PAGE] Near Crown King, Horsethief Cabin's open bedroom door reveals views of the surrounding ponderosa pine forest.

[CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE] Originally constructed to house forest firefighters, the Fernow Cabin south of Flagstaff has trails leading to the nearby Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness. Overlooking red rock country's Cathedral Rock, Crescent Moon Ranch boasts unparalleled views. En route to Fernow Cabin on Woody Mountain Road, a truck crosses a bridge over the West Fork of Oak Creek. With meadows reflected in its windows, Kendrick Cabin is stocked with firewood to create cozy warmth on chilly mountain evenings.

Another historic rental, the Kaibab National Forest's Spring Valley Cabin, was built in 1917 as a guard station. Midway between Flagstaff (30 miles east) and Williams (25 miles west), the cabin has room for eight and is surrounded by wide-open vistas of forests and mountains, parks and prairies. It's an ideal location for scenic drives, especially in autumn, when aspens turn the mountainsides into a patchwork of green and gold. Pack a picnic and a pair of binoculars so you can watch for pronghorn antelope herds grazing Government or Garland prairies.

Many local routes follow the footsteps of earlier travelers, including Lt. Edward F. Beale, who was charged not only with blazing a route from Arkansas to the Colorado River but also with testing the worth of camels imported by the Army for desert expeditions. Beale was enthusiastic about the Army's experiment, his men less so. (Some say the camels had help getting "lost" from the expedition's stock.) Beale's expedition left an inscription at Laws Spring in 1859, where centuries earlier, travelers marked the spring's location with petroglyphs in the basalt. It's possible to access the Beale Road here for an Easy stroll. Hikers and equestrians can also follow 25 miles of the Overland Road, built by the Army in 1863 to connect the Beale Road to the gold fields of Prescott. Wagon ruts can still be seen along bothhistoric routes.

In 1926, U.S. Route 66 was born, and with it, a whole new era of travelers' tales. Passenger cars can drive Route 66 for 22 miles east from downtown Williams, with a short jog on Interstate 40, which replaced 66, known as the "Mother Road," in the 1950s. Two older alignments, dating from the 1920s and '30s, serve as mountain bike trails, the Devil Dog and Ash Fork Hill loops.

If your preferred mode of transportation is on the back of a horse, head for the heart of Arizona, about 90 miles north of Phoenix and 25 miles south of Camp Verde. Here, in the Prescott National Forest, Sycamore Cabin can accommodate up to eight people, and the corral has room for four horses. There's also a horseshoe pit for guests who want to try their skill. Constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) in 1938, the cabin housed the district ranger and later, fire crews. The cabin has wooden floors and Mission-style furniture. Sycamore Creek flows behind the cabin, its banks shaded by majestic Arizona sycamores.

Hikers and equestrians can explore nearby forest roads and trails. The Verde Rim Trail provides stunning views of the rough country above the Verde River and leads to the Pine Mountain Wilderness Area, a 6,800-foot pine island surrounded by rocky chaparral.

If you're looking for a taste of the Old West, you'll find it on the way to Horsethief Cabin, in the Prescott National Forest's Bradshaw District, near the mountain hamlet of Crown King. Though the cabin stands only 60 miles from Phoenix as the raven flies, it's nearly 100 miles by road, one third of it rocky, winding and narrow, climbing to elevations of more than 6,000 feet.

[RIGHT] Spring Valley Cabin's deck provides guests with panoramic views stretching to Kendrick Peak.

[CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE] Breakfast beckons at Horsethief Cabin. At 6,700 feet, Horsethief Lookout Tower commands a 360-degree vista from its high Bradshaw Mountains' location. Weathered to rustic perfection, the barn and corrals at Sycamore Cabin can house four horses. Sycamore Cabin rests in the shade of its namesake tree along the banks of Sycamore Creek south of Camp Verde. Boaters find a tranquil setting at Horsethief Basin Lake near Crown King and Horsethief Cabin.

Goldand silver-bearing ores lured miners here in the 1860s, men so desperate for riches they were willing to risk their lives in Indian country. During the Bradshaw excitement, miners worked dozens of placer and hardrock claims-the Tiger, War Eagle, Black Warrior, Silver Prince, Oro Bella and the largest, “the Crowned King.” According to one tale, Horsethief Basin was named for an enterprising local who stole horses from freighters hauling supplies to the miners, then later “found” the horses for them... for a fee. Others say that rustlers used the remote basin to hide stolen herds on their way to Mexico.

Horsethief Cabin, a former guard station that sleeps up to six, sits on the site of a former CCC camp. Before air conditioning, the area was a haven for Phoenix residents escaping the summer heat. The CCC built shelters at nearby Hazlett Hollow campground and constructed a masonry dam to create Horsethief Basin Lake. Amenities at this one-time Phoenix park included tennis courts, playground and a grocery store. Today, only the dam, campground shelters and few cabins remain among the tall pines as reminders of the basin's glory days.

More than a half-dozen trails wind near Horsethief Basin, some passing old mines, such as the Algonquin, where a few wall outlines are visible. With a high-clearance vehicle, it's possible to drive to the Horsethief Lookout Tower, a bumpy 4.5 miles, or hike there via Kentucky Trail, about a mile. The tower is listed on a register of historic fire lookouts, romantic symbols now being replaced by computerized detection systems and flyovers. During the 1940s, nearly 4,000 fire towers stood throughout the United States, many of them constructed during the Depression. Fewer than 900 are in use today. At 6,700 feet, the tower rewards explorers with stunning views of Black Canyon and Perry Mesa. To the south, Lake Pleasant gleams turquoise beyond tan, gold and gray slopes.

A gentler trail circles the placid waters of Horsethief Basin Lake, less than a mile from the cabin. Stocked with bass and catfish, the 3-acre lake makes a delightful picnic spot. You can perch for awhile on granite boulders at the lake's edge and watch fish sneak up on dragonflies while you ponder what trail or road to explore next. Then again, watching dragonflies dart among the reeds might be activity enough... at least until your next cabin getaway. Al Kathleen Bryant of Sedona swears that her next cabin stay will be a writing retreat, but maybe not until after the sun goes down and it's too dark to hike.

Surrounded by the earth-oriented life of wilderness living, Larry Lindahl of Sedona says he felt like a pioneer time-traveling back into the heyday of these useful forest shelters. He also wrote and photographed the Elves Chasm story in this issue.

the displaced hopi murals of awat'ovi

Our lab coats swished as we moved. Marching across polished tile floors in the lobby of Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, two of us wore these coats as if from some religious order. The order of science, of archaeology, mimics in many ways a religion with its ceremonial dress, its tomes of sacred papers, its ancient icons hidden in the catacombs of museums.

Susan Haskell, a Peabody curatorial associate, led me along, stepping down a wood-banistered stairwell. She was taking me to a storage site where I could see some of the aging relics I had traveled from Arizona to find. We moved through basement hallways, pipes rumbling and hissing with underground steam, jangling out keys to unlock a deadbolt. A door opened to a vast storage room of artifacts. Painted canvases of buffalo hides hung from the walls like enormous scrolls. Racks held wooden weapons, arrows and bows. The air smelled like an attic. I moved slowly behind Haskell, taking note of all that surrounded me, wooden file drawers nearly ceiling-tall. She turned to make sure I was following. "Just over here," she said. "They're around the corner." When I rounded the corner, a passage of color confronted me. Even after years of being buried underground, they were still vivid: paintings that had been excavated from a kiva within the great, fallen pueblo of Awat'ovi near Keams Canyon in northern Arizona just east of