BACK ROAD ADVENTURE

Fistful of Scenery Hoodoos, cinder cones, weird formations-even Clint Eastwood-await on Red Mountain Trail

I SIGN THE REGISTRY at the Red Mountain Trailhead and gasp. The name ahead of mine on the list is Clint Eastwood. Is “Dirty Harry” himself checking out the San Francisco Volcanic Fields northwest of Flagstaff? I pull on my hiking boots and holler for my husband, Richard, to get going. The Red Mountain Trail has star quality of its own, even without Clint Eastwood. The trail runs along a cinder cone that looks as though a demented giant grabbed a butcher knife and hacked off its eastern flank, leaving its innards to form a spectacular amphitheater. The cutaway cliffs blush red-orange in the morning sun. At 7,000 feet elevation, a light breeze cools us for a pleasant, 2.5-mile-round-trip stroll through a piñonjuniper-ponderosa forest along the old road that the Youth Conservation Corp turned into a trail in 1980. In summer, trail grass the color of an Anaheim green chile lines the path. After threequarters of a mile, the trail drops down into Hull Wash with easy walking on hard sand. Ahead, Red Mountain's walls are sliced, diced and eroded into a jumble of ledges and vertical gullies reminiscent of Bryce Canyon National Park. The trail narrows as the wash cuts between two black cinder walls. Occasionally, shiny black rocks cover the sandy wash bottom-an example of lapilli, glassy volcanic fragments measuring from .1 to 2.5 inches in diameter. Since Eastwood isn't around to tell us any different, we declare them obsidian chips. Above us, two cawing ravens chase a turkey vulture in defense of their territory.

VOLCANIC VIEW Red Mountain

offers scenic glimpses into the area's eruptive past. From the trail, hikers can spy SP Mountain, a small crater in the distance.

The silent buzzard ignores the pesky ravens for about five minutes, before wheeling away. A Western scrub jay screeches its displeasure as Richard and I tromp through its domain, and like the buzzard, we move on. Suddenly the trail enters The Gateway, a gap between two hulking basalt boulders that guard the entrance to the royal showroom. A small stone dam, built years ago to hold water for cattle, blocks the trail. It has backfilled with silt, but the Forest Service erected an eight-step

ladder to climb over the dam. On top, I feel like I've walked into an old science fiction movie set, decorated with surreal-looking stone pillars called “hoodoos,” slot crevices, switchback trails and niches eroded from soft volcanic tuff.

I'm looking around in amazement, when Richard calls, “I've found your Clint Eastwood.” I hurry along to see Richard visiting with 77-year-old Bob Bowser, a tall, distinguished-looking man, but definitely not Clint Eastwood. Bowser laughs and confesses to signing in as the movie star. “It makes people keep walking quickly down the trail,” he says.

Bowser is with his fellow members of PPIPPS-the Peripatetic Prudent Independent Percolating Peacocks. Despite its tonguetwisting name, the small group of Flagstaff seniors makes its own fun. Today they hike; maybe tomorrow they'll take in a movie.

A young couple is exploring a small nearby cave, but I'm content to roam the narrow slot crevices and the winding maze through oversized beehivelike formations, with walls pocked like Swiss cheese. Perhaps the pocks formed from gas pockets inside the volcano or maybe they're just a quirk of erosion. Although hawks aren't interested in the geologic origin of the holes, they happily use them as nesting sites. Children would love exploring this otherworldly kingdom. When a Gila woodpecker starts rat-a-tatting his Morse code on a ponderosa pine, we figure he's calling in the ravens to chase us off, and we retreat back down the trail. The birds can threaten all they want, but I'm coming back again to climb through The Gateway to this cutaway cathedral. A

trail guide

Length: 2.5 miles round-trip. Elevation Gain: 300 feet. Difficulty: Easy but requires climbing a short ladder. Payoff: Forest views, unusual geology, including hoodoos and slot crevices, and bird-watching. Location: 30 miles north of Flagstaff. Getting There: From Route 66 in downtown Flagstaff, drive north on Humphreys Street, then north on U.S. Route 180 for 30 miles to Milepost 247. Turn left (west) and follow the dirt road (passable by car) for .3 of a mile to the trailhead. Travel Advisory: April through October are the best months to make the hike. Summer monsoon season often brings afternoon rains. Always carry plenty of water, at least 1 gallon per day per person. Additional Information: Coconino National Forest, (928) 527-3600; www.fs.fed.us/r3/coconino.

On the Comeback Trail Rough drive to rediscover a wounded mountain reveals Mount Lemmon's slow resurgence

WE HAD NOT been to the mountain since the fire. Dread kept us away. In the summer of 2003, forest fires ravaged the soaring green playground of Mount Lemmon, Tucson's back yard. The fire consumed historic cabins and ancient trees, replacing scenic splendor with Halloween-scary images. But both man and nature worked on recovery, and to celebrate the rebirth, one sparkling fall day my husband and I set out on Our journey. Like any good quest, this one surmounted challenges in hazardous places to seek the treasure at the end.

Control Road, also called Mount Lemmon Road, bumps roughly up the north side of the Santa Catalina Mountains from Peppersauce Canyon near the town of Oracle, northwest of Tucson, to the Summerhaven Fire Station. Some 10,000 cars toil up this adventurous back road to Mount Lemmon each year, compared to millions on the paved Catalina Highway on the southeast side, according to Bob Magon of the Forest Service. If the weather turns bad or you lack a highclearance vehicle, then stick to the beaten path of the Catalina Highway. That main route provides smooth pavement, guardrails and pullouts and a quicker trip.

But this being a quest, we did it the hard way. Veering right from American Avenue in Oracle at a Y-intersection, we joined the Mount Lemmon Road that zips across ranchland to Peppersauce Canyon, at which point the road is labeled Forest Service Road 38. Along the way, the pavement gave way to a wellmaintained gravel road and passed by one of the entrances to the Arizona Trail. In Peppersauce Canyon, picnic tables nestled under towering cottonwoods and birches in a cool, green retreat.

The mountains disappeared as the road curved and dipped

LONG AND WINDING ROAD

Far-reaching views of the Galiuro Mountains and San Pedro Valley stretch to the horizon and offer a change in scenery below Mount Lemmon Road, also known as Control Road, which snakes over the Santa Catalina Mountains' northeastern shoulder.

The car. Blackened trees from the fire bristled on both sides of the narrow road.

We bumped up 6 miles of unpaved road in 14 minutes. Juniper trees raised our hopes that we were gaining altitude. However, the road dipped down into mesquite and crossed a deep wash-a reminder that this is not a road for rainy days.

Negotiating a hairpin turn atop a ridge, we glimpsed light gleaming off distant telescopes atop Mount Lemmon. Small yellow flowers brightened the dusty brown roadside.

Groups of men wearing bulky jackets sat around their muddy pick-up trucks on the flat ridge among scrub oaks and prickly pear cacti. In the fall, deer hunters gather at dispersed camping sites in the Coronado National Forest and peer through binoculars, hoping for mule deer to venture out from cover. While they wait, they engage in the real activity of hunting season-swapping jokes and tall tales on a sunny day in a quiet place.

Ten slow miles from Peppersauce, we entered a ghost forest, haunted by the black skeletons of trees. Even so, we could see nature striving to recover. Green sprouted everywhere. We were unaware how high we had climbed until expansive views opened toward Aravaipa Creek and Muleshoe Ranch to the southeast.

A bad washout in the road forced us to slow the Jeep to a crawl and pick our way over a one-lane bridge and up a hill. The road circled the rim of a deep bowl, where rounded brown hills and grassy meadows seemed downright civilized in contrast to the rough hillsides we had passed. However, remnants of the forest fire erased any illusion of a Shangri-La.

GO THE DISTANCE

The Arizona Trail, a nearly 800-mile nonmotorized route that will traverse the state when it's completed, can be accessed just outside Oracle from Control Road, designated as Forest Service Road 38.

In 2003, the Aspen Fire ran violently across the mountain, whirling this way and stretching its arms out that way. It snapped its fingers and great ponderosa pines exploded. It licked a red tongue across the earth and left a black trail. It toyed with manzanita A maze of ponderosa pine trees emerges from a forest floor thick with pine needles in the Santa Catalina Mountains area of the Coronado National Forest.

through the foothills above Peppersauce Campground, taking its time to approach the summit. Ranchers still run cattle here, and houses and fences peek out of valleys. Signs of mining still mark the hillsides. In a field, an ancient corral slowly fades and crumbles.As the road climbed, views of the distant valley opened up, and the first burned trees sliced across the sky. In a tooth-rattling test of our mettle, the sharp granite bones of the mountain poked up through sparse gravel. Dead, spooky-looking century plants leaned over

THE COMEBACK TRAIL Damage from the 2003 Aspen Fire is still evident along the Mount Lemmon back road leading to the newly rebuilt town of Summerhaven.

and yucca, assigning some clusters to extermination while leaving neighboring clusters untouched. Two years later, stubborn grasses asserted themselves and vivid green leaves peered out from blackened limbs. The mountain will not look the same in our lifetime, experts say. But it will not stay black and dead.

After an hour on the road, we saw warning signs: “Unmaintained Road-7 miles.” “Falling Trees-next 6 miles.” “Flash Flood-next 6 miles.” What kind of greeting was that? However, as if to soften the lecture on caution, the other side of the road opened to a panoramic view that stretched for miles to the northeast.

route finder

Just as we thought the road couldn't get worse, we hit a stretch that looked more like a rock-climbing area than a road. There must be a better designation than “unmaintained.” The Jeep drew a deep breath, hesitated, then crawled up over the barrier of rocks. While the Forest Service and the county do minimal maintenance on most of Control Road, this stretch across private property remains truly primitive.

For decades before the 1920 completion of Control Road, Tucsonans had climbed on foot or with the help of horses and mules to collect wood, minerals or peace and quiet. It took five years of political wrangling to complete the first road to Summerhaven, and this was the only route until 1933, when taxpayers funded Catalina Highway.

The narrow road still leaves no room to pass another vehicle or to pull off the side. It is this section that gave the road its name. Because cars going in opposite directions could not pass, signs “controlled” traffic on this stretch. The upward-bound drivers had to leave at a set time, offset by 90 minutes from the four daily departure times for the traffic headed down.

We climbed from 4,000 to 8,000 feet in elevation, covering the 28 miles from Oracle to the fire station on the top in two-and-a-half hours, with more bumps and grinds than a night at a cowboy dance hall. The reward for the adventurous waited at Mt. Lemmon Cafe, a treasured business that survived the fire. There, we found shining circles of-no, not gold rings-but something even better-tin pans of pie.

travel tips

All Mountains teach quiet lessons: Keep putting one foot in front of the other and you will reach the top. Time will heal, and life will defeat destructive forces. Taking the hard road has its rewards. Scenery and pie.

HISTORIC HILLSIDES

Rolling hills (right) dotted with agaves, ocotillos, mesquite trees and scrub oaks dominate the landscape that is home to several historic southern Arizona ranches.