Destination Bisbee's Queen Mine

restaurants draw tourists to its historic district, and guests still check into the showplace Copper Queen Hotel, built in 1902 and named for the famous mine.

The Queen encompasses 163 miles of “drifts,” or tunnels, but the tours go in only about 1,500 feet and last about 70 minutes. Passengers must walk a few yards and climb some steps, but mostly they ride or stand. After a short distance in, anyone bothered by the narrow (4to 7-foot-wide) tunnels can go back outside. “Not many do,” Hernandez said.

Before boarding, his passengers put on yellow slickers, hardhats and belted battery-operated flashlights. Those wearing shorts risked a cool tour because the temperature inside the mine stays at about 47 degrees.

“Some mines are hot, some are wet, but this one's cool because of all the drifts and the open shafts to the outside,” Hernandez explained.

His passengers rode swiftly through the drifts, dismounting to ascend 31 steps up to the cavelike “stope,” which seemed huge compared to the tunnels. This is where the high-grade ore was removed, Hernandez told them as they stared at the massive beams that hold up the roof and shined their flashlights on heavy tools lying on the ground. Hernandez pointed out a rough wooden desk the bosses used for paperwork and a modified bicycle that ran on the ore-car tracks. The supervisors had to check in with the miners twice a day, and the bike made it easier to get around.

Hernandez recalled when some miners hid their boss's bike and he had to walk. “We could hear him cussing for a mile throughout the mine,” he said, chuckling.

But not much underground was a laughing matter. Hernandez drew attention to a 2-ton ore car, which he said could be emptied by one man. But if he got careless, he could be crushed. Later he showed off a huge drill that was so powerful miners had to be constantly alert when using it to bore into the rock. Thick fire doors hinted at the danger of any spark under ground.

Stopping at a cagelike elevator, Hernandez said it carried workers and supplies in and out of the mine, moving at 1,000 feet a minute. A series of bell pulls announced levels where it would stop. At the end of the tour, his passengers glad not to be boarding the elevator-piled back onto the tour car for the easy ride back to daylight.

On the Queen Mine tours, 50,000 visitors a year get a real sense of the hard, noisy and dangerous work that took place in those labyrinthine drifts. And when their guide tells them, “Turn off your flashlights,” they get an even stronger sense of just how really dark “dark” can be. Al

Historic Munds Wagon Trail Began as an 1800s Cattle-driving Route

LATE-WINTER SNOWFALL HAD dusted Sedona's peaks, and low clouds were parting as my husband and I stepped onto the historic Munds Wagon Trail, a recently completed path that climbs 4 miles from the base of Schnebly Hill to MerryGo-Round Rock.

From the trailhead, we struck east, crossing Schnebly Hill Road twice before descending toward Bear Wallow Canyon. According to local histories, an early settler spotted bears wallowing in the mud somewhere nearby. We didn't expect to see bears, though we did figuratively wallow, soaking up the scenery along Mitten Ridge.

Munds Road began as a cattle trail in the late 1800s, used by Jim Munds to drive his herd from the Verde Valley to greener summer pastures at Munds Park. Sedona's fruit growers and ranchers later improved the route for wagon travel, shaving at least a day off the journey to Flagstaff. After Carl and Sedona Schnebly settled where Los Abrigados resort stands today, the Munds wagon road became known as Schnebly Hill Road. When the modern Schnebly Hill Road was built in the 1930s, the old roadbed faded back into the forest. It was rediscovered by a couple of local Forest Service rangers, history buffs who delighted in resurrecting it as a hiking trail.

We continued through a grove of fragrant cypress trees, beckoned by the sound of snowmelt rushing down rocky Bear Wallow Canyon. Within a half-hour, we spotted a pair of waterfalls tumbling over a sandstone shelf. From there, we followed the ephemeral stream as it danced around stepping-stones and braided across a sweep of sandstone in clear rivulets. About 2 miles and six waterfalls later, at a long stretch of slickrock, snowmelt raced through stone chutes and basins.

Beyond the slickrock, the trail climbed back and forth uphill. Above the switchbacks, rock reinforcements stood as testament to the pioneers who built the road using picks, shovels and, where necessary, hand drills to place dynamite charges.

Builders completed the road in 1902, the same year Sedona's first post office was established. The trail skirted the canyon edge and passed through a stand of venerable junipers that once shaded wagons on their way to Flagstaff. Across canyon lay the sumptuous curves of slickrock that locals unromantically refer to as “the cowpies.” Ahead, basalt outcroppings marked the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau.

We crossed present-day Schnebly Hill Road again, heading toward the north-facing cliffs of Munds Mountain, where ponderosa pine trees jut from pale Coconino sandstone. Shrub oaks and junipers shaded patches of snow and offered peeks of the conical orange-red formation known as Merry-Go-Round Rock. We decided to make the rock our turnaround point as clouds descended and snow patches obscured the trail.

With a little fog and a lot of imagination, we envisioned the huge chunks of gray Fort Apache limestone circling the Merry-GoRound's base as carousel cars and horses.

A nearby waterfall provided rousing music. We headed back down the trail as the lights of Sedona glowed through the settling fog, beckoning us the way flickering lamplight guided weary travelers a century ago. All