A Delicate River of Light

NOGALES WASH Memory of a Summer Snow

BY ALBERTO RÍOS The Nogales Wash is a dangerous place now. An innocuous arroyo, it occasionally carries water through a part of the Santa Cruz Valley that the Santa Cruz River itself, farther east, doesn't catch at first. Starting in Mexico, the wash crosses underneath the border, heads north and eventually joins with the Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona.

As a north-flowing wash, it mimics something of the movement and practices of people in the area. People have tried to use its tunnels underneath the two adjacent border towns to cross over to this country.

Moreover, border factories have perhaps been lax in what they've let settle into its water. On a recent visit, I threw a rock into the water causing a drop to splash onto my wife's jeans-the droplet left a white bleached mark.

Signs everywhere caution not to drink the water that in years past we used to swim in. It stank even back then-or rather, it had a distinct scent of its own. I did not find it altogether displeasing, as it was the smell of adventure itself.

I lived about 4 miles outside town, in the rolling hills of gentle horse and cow country, in a fabled pass known for centuries as the Pimería Alta. From the beginning, the wash was the one place I was never supposed to go because it was across the highway. So, of course, it's where I spent most of my time.

The flash floods and sewage effluent filled the wash with the detritus of two cultures, so many small things that made up daily life-the straw hats and cigarette packs and small, flattened balsa wood cajete candy boxes from the Sonora, Mexico, side, the beer bottles and car-part packages and throwaway pens and lighters from the Arizona side, and the things that joined them, the things that everybody had, every-body used, the dolls and the shoes and the colored bits of plastic from all manner of containers. All of this mixed into the mud of the banks, decomposing, all of it like a big loam fruitcake.

For me personally, the wash came to hold the chronicles of a boyhood, and was in that way a personal library, if not of ideas then certainly of the things from which ideas later spring.

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON, but not so close to dinner that I had any worries about being whistled home by my father. The afternoon was still mine.

I rode my red Western Flyer bike farther than normal on this summer day, just for the enjoyment of seeing what would come next. When I got to the barbed-wire fence that guarded the arroyo this far north, I hid my bike then walked until I found a turn, an elbow in the direction of the wash. It was sharp enough that a bank had formed, with enough of a mix of earth and Johnson grass and debris to step firmly on. As I walked to it, I began to take notice of something changing. Old cottonwood trees, in all their gray and brown and arthritic postures, surrounded the wash at this juncture. The water in the wash was moving along. I could hear its ease. The sun was warm.

Then suddenly, the air filled with the white seeds that cotton-woods drop. They were everywhere, and made a filtered light. Perhaps they had been in the air all along and I had simply been at the wrong angle to see them. Now I saw them, and everywhere. These were more than the flotsam and jetsam of airborne dusts and curled fronds. I stood there, struck, though I did not know that word. What I thought of at that moment was snow. And I still do-but it was Arizona snow, summer snow, this place's snow. It was falling all over me, all around, onto everything. It had the color and the quiet and the embrace I would indeed later understand snow to have. But this was something of its own.

In that moment I remembered Christmas cards with snowy houses I had seen, and thought of Christmas itself. Snow equaled Christmas-curiously, even here in the Arizona desert, where nothing was further from the truth. Christmas. I made the connection to snow more than to something religious. The moment was so clearly one of what I would call well-being, and I was in its thrall. I had walked without plan, I had found this place by surprise, my shoes fit, my pants fit, nothing hurt, I wasn't breathing hard. The moment held me, enough so that I felt myself not as myself but as instead one more part of this place at this moment, one more cottonwood Seed wafting in the afternoon, one more branch, one more glint of light. For a split second, I was part of something greater than I was. I felt smooth and fitted and light and perfect.

I certainly didn't stand there thinking all this. But I did feel it. I felt it so deeply I have never forgotten. Moments of pure well-being do not present themselves to us often. I can only think of two or three times where I felt this sensibility so wholly. They are a momentary portal, through which for that instant we take a step or two, showing us something perfect. They shore us up for the rest of our lives and are our secret bones.

Christmas itself in this small postwar suburb was a magical event, with paper bag luminarias throughout the neighborhood, and all the decorations one could imagine. But this was public Christmas, everybody's Christmas. My personal version came in summer, and only to me. My thanks for all things springs from something palpable in that moment. Christmas, of a sort, was where I found it, not where I was told to find it, and it has lasted beyond so much else.

Alberto Ríos spent his first 25 Christmases on the border, where rich tradition reflected the ready confluence of cultures. The borderland holiday season, from December 12 to January 7, presented itself best, Rios says, on the kitchen table, everything tasted by the tongue and, to this day, told by it.

FOUR PEAKS WILDERNESS Quiet Contrasts

"Four Peaks Wilderness is one of my favorite landscapes. I come here to embrace its solitude and the peaceful feelings it evokes. As I made this photograph, I was inspired by the contrast between the vast, arid Sonoran Desert and the snowy peaks. I have many fond memories of this area and the people who have hiked it with me. Its beauty has drawn me back again and again. Every time I retum, it is like seeing an old friend."

morey milbradt

Morey Milbradt lives in Tempe with his wife, Nancy, and their four pets. He has been photographing the West for 14 years, often working with his panoramic camera to capture the broad expanses of the Western landscape.

WHITE MOUNTAINS

"While photographing in the White Mountains for a book on Arizona, my wife and I came upon this fabulous field of blooming thistles draped in spider webs. The evening light wasn't quite right, so we returned the next morning to find dewdrops still clinging to the delicate webs. We called our friends, the late Bob Clemenz and his wife, Suzy, and insisted they join us. We met early the next day and wandered the fields together, shooting in the morning light, experiencing the spirit of friendship. It's a memory that makes this place so special for us."

larry ulrich

With his wife, Donna, Larry Ulrich has been traveling and photographing for more than 30 years. They live in a redwood forest next to the ocean in Trinidad, California.

GRAND FALLS Seasonal Sight

"The first time I glimpsed Grand Falls, I was shocked to find it bone dry. I didn't know then that to see Arizona's largest waterfall in action, you must arrive during the spring runoff in March or April. While I could only imagine the floodwaters of the Little Colorado River cascading into the nearly 200-foot-deep canyon, I clearly saw where dark lava from a nearby volcano had changed the course of the river and created the falls. Few places so plainly reveal their geologic story. When the falls are flowing, it is a miracle in the desert."

Ralph Lee Hopkins of Santa Fe, New Mexico, published his first images in Arizona Highways while still a geology graduate student at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. A description of the creation of Grand Falls is included in his popular guidebook, Hiking the Southwest's Geology.

EGGSHELL ARCH No Bridge Too Far

"As a lover of natural arches, discovering a new one is great fun. I first saw Eggshell Arch through binoculars. I used Internet technology to plan my approach by road, an advantage not available to earlier generations of photographers. While similar to Canyonlands National Park's landmark Mesa Arch, the much thicker Eggshell Arch on the Navajo Indian Reservation extends farther out from its canyon rim. My hiking buddy had no qualms about walking across this little-known treasure of the Colorado Plateau. The span is a natural wonder, bridging a sea of canyons and mesas."

Although he photographs landscapes around the world, Tom Till prefers the light and land of the American Southwest. He chooses to live in Moab, Utah, very close to the natural arches of Arches National Park.