Beyond the Southern Horizon

Beyond the Southern Horizon A Tale of the Land Away From Civilization Where Mountains are Named for a Bug and Death Awaits the Unwary

FAR BEYOND the visible horizon seen by transcontinental travelers in southern Arizona, farther than the place from whence the first vista blurs away to nothing toward the south, there is a land of silence but of life, life which obeys the rules of the desert and heeds its warnings or dies. It is a land where nothing is seen as far as the eye can reach; not a fence post, not a road and not a sign post. There is no one to keep out, no one to need a road and no one or anything able to read a sign. Not a single head of cattle and not a horse's hoof-mark in the desert sand, and no smoke of a lonely hut will blur the most distant perspective.

It is a land of silence, so silent that if the human who enters stops and listens, his ears will ring as if they were held close to a sea shell, and his heart will sound like something beating a gigantic drum beyond the distant granite range.

It has not always been a land of silence. Where sometimes the lonely wail of Mr. Coyote floats quiveringly over the desert, there were at not a distant past the bellowings and roars of the forces of Vulcan as his blacksmiths forged and beat out the mountains and craters now sleeping in the hot sun as they lie on the immense sloping sides of old Pinacate, the mountain named after a bug.

It is a land where Life and Death run a daily race, where life in the form of plants obeys the rules of Death or passes into oblivion, and the survivor is glad for the space left to him.

That part of southwestern Arizona south of the Southern Pacific railroad and that paralleling Highway 80, both of which are afraid to get very far apart in this country of sand, sunshine and black lava malapai, and which lies west

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS DECEMBER, 1934.

Crater Elegante is the largest volcanic crater in the Pinacate field. The tremendous size of this crater cannot be realized even while standing on its rim. It is something like looking down into the Grand Canyon. All comparisons as to size or forms of objects fade in the mind of the observer as he gazes into this gigantic hole in the earth. The crater is more than one and one-quarter miles in diaand south of Gila Bend and southeast and south of Yuma, is the most uninhabited and least known land on the continent. There are many parts of Arizona which are far from civilization, and there are many mountainous regions which are wild and uninhabited, but there is no place in these areas where there is not some few Indians within a distance of ten or twenty miles, or some prospector hoping he will stumble onto a gold vein overlooked because of the isolation of the region. Northern Arizona has its Navajo stretch away to the horizon without a sign of human being, and the mountain regions of the Mogollon plateau have their wild and inaccessible places, but in the mesas of the Navajo there is al ways some hogan of cedar logs up a small side canyon and there is always some isolated ranger station or bunk house where the cowman can hole up in a snowstorm. It is possible to go into the immense desert of southwestern Arizona and its blending continuation into the desert of northern Sonora, and travel for weeksnot see a single sign of the human, animal or his work. The region the writer is attempting to describe is the desert than can be reached from Tucson by way of Ajo or from Wellton, forty some miles east of Yuma, and to the south of that last civilized point. We went in by way of Ajo from Tucson, and by devious methods and to certain ones an irregular manner we landed at Wellton after weeks of exploration of the Southern Arizona boundary and the region around the volcanic upheaval known as Pinacate, as well as a day or so on the Gulf of California about one hundred miles south of Ajo. The writer wants to state at the outset that before starting a trip of this nature every precaution must be taken in regard to water and supplies and every possible condition must be imagined, and its solution calculated, otherwise there might be tragedy. A disastrous result would be, say, for instance, the lack of enough water to take the entire trip as planned and the hurried and disappointed way back to the last watering point, while the tragic aspect could e me from a broken down car, hopelessly beyond local repair and the slow drudgery of a walk back fifty to eighty miles to the nearest point of help. On a hike in the desert, it is easy for one person to drink two gallons of water a day if it is abundant. He can get along with one gallon a day by stinting himself, with the resulting lack of strength. He can also get along on two quarts by rigid denial and careful conservation. But say he has sixty miles to go to the water hole he last left and he makes twenty miles

DECEMBER, 1934. ARIZONA HIGHWAYS 5

meter and about nine hundred feet deep. It would be possible to put two of the Meteor Craters of Northern Arizona side by side in this hole and still have room for several towns in the space left. The floor of the crater is not far from the level of the sea, about fifteen miles away. As the pictures were being made ten or twelve mountain sheep viewed the proceedings with interest and then slowly walked away in single file along the rim of the crater.

a day, if he is feeling good. He also has to carry some grub to bring him strength to make the twenty miles through the sand and over the rocks and water weighs something, so does grub. He may have to throw the grub away but he had better hang on to the canteen. The whole situation demands a careful advance survey and stocking up of supplies of the proper kind right down to the point of eliminating all food which causes thirst. On the way from Tucson, especially in the late spring, the sun is not so hot as to cause discomfort. The nights are always cold enough for a couple of blankets if one sleeps on the sand or in some arroyo, and cool enough for double that amount of bedding if sleeping on a cot. It is just as cold under a canvas cot as above it, so two blankets below and two above must be used to make it comfortable. The idea of Snakes joining you for their personal comfort at your expense of body heat can be dismissed, as they hardly ever bite one who has let them share his bed, at least the writer does not know of anyone alive today who has been bitten by a snakey bed-fellow. Better to think that if some poor old rattle snake wants to use your bed to get a good night's sleep and have you furnish the heat for the same, he will be so glad that you have been his host that in the morning both of you will crawl out without any hard feelings. If he does get irritated all you have to do is to stroke him along his back with a large feather and he will glide away con tented.

Camp and your meals will be of your own concoction. Water must be taken in the amount of about twenty to thirty gallons. Gasoline must be stored in the car for as many miles as you think you will go. This will be around sixty gal lons, including what the car tank holds. The gas and water are loaded at Ajo, the last point where your money is good. Incidentally Ajo will probably be the last place where you will see a human being unless you get uppish and shave some day when you can spare the water and have a mirror.Before Ajo is reached from Tucson, there are many places and things of in terest to see, mostly consisting of the Papago Indian villages and the Indian activities. On the trip the writer made, a stop was made at several villages, Covered Wells, where there is so little water that they have to keep the water holes covered to prevent the few jack rabbits from drinking it all some night; Comobabi, where the cowboys had some bad broncs to break and the writer had to skin up the sides of the mesquite

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