SITTING ON TOP OF THE WORLD

WHAT a grand new thrill this "sittin' on top of the world"what an exalted, good-to-be-alive and "monarch of all I survey" feeling, too. But no one can tell you about all this. You will just have to go up on top of the San Francisco Peaks and experience it all for yourself. It isn't every day that the ordinary person can negotiate such heights without so much effort, time and expense that the game is hardly worth the candle. But in this case it is fairly easy, for all you have to do is to follow Highway 66 to Flagstaff in Northern Arizona, thence up the new spectacular San Francisco Mountain Boulevard, where you can drive your own car nearly to the top of the Peaks, and, after a short climb on foot to the very highest one in the group, there you are on top of the world!

FROM San Francisco Peaks, the whole world lies before your feet and from there you see all the beauty of northern Arizona. Now you can sit down at an elevation of nearly 13,000 feet and enjoy a panorama so vast, so tremendous in its scope and variation, so awe-inspiring and overwhelming in its reaction, that, to say the least, "See America First," will thereafter have a new meaning for you.

Right at your feet and spreading in all directions as far as the eye can carry, but especially to northward, let me introduce you to the largest standing forest now left in the United States! That seems like a very large order for Arizona, but there it is, lovely, big, stately pines four and five feet through, and as much as five hundred years old. Ten thousand square miles of them in Arizona alone! Of the 160,000,000 feet of lumber cut annually in this state, 95% of it is produced at Flagstaff or nearby mill towns. And for the benefit of those who think the state so hot and dry, did you know that Flagstaff has the coolest average summer temperature of any city in the West? That it has the purest water and that there is more ozone in the air than at any other place in the United States? Also, that as we look out from this height, we can spot thirtyeight lakes and several rivers.

This mountain is the center of more scenic wonders than any other area in the United States for you can now look into five states and old Mexico. No matter what a person's taste may be in the matter of recreation, whether scientific, historical, educational, sportive or merely scenic, it can be perfectly fulfilled in this too little known part of a marvelous state.

One hardly knows which way to turn first, but the eye is quickly attracted to a large and shining body of water in the distance, which forms Mormon lake, thirty miles away to the south at the foot of Mormon mountain. It is a veritable sportsman's paradise, abounding with fish of various kinds and harboring on its shores an abundance of game both large and small. From early spring until snow flies, pleasure boats ply the surface and up-to-date summer camps and tourists' tents dot the shore.

To those who have read Zane Grey's "Call of the Canyon," Oak Creek will need no further nor better description as it winds its way to lower country, for this vicinity rivals the Garden of the Gods for grotesque, unique and beautifully colored rock formation. The creek itself, margined by shelving walls of red and yellow, is alive with trout, and waters many fertile little ranches nestled on the curves of its banks. These ranches furnish a variety of excellent fruits and vegetables to towns higher on the mountain and other locations less favored.

A little more to the east one can discern an irregular cleft which is Walnut Canyon extending from the tall, stately pines of the mountains down through mile after mile of fragrant gray-green cedars. Protected by the overhanging walls of this canyon, an ancient race of cliff-dwellers once lived. One can now visit these ancient homes and, with a little imagination, can people them again with some forgotten tribe. But from whence they came, their life, where they went and why, must still remain a mystery, for little is known about them, and no other print on time has been left except these ruined hovels hanging between earth and sky. Not far from here you will see the famous Montezuma Castle and Well, Elden Pueblo and many others, for more of these ancient ruins are reached from Flagstaff than from any other city.

Near Walnut Canyon we find the Bottomless Pit, another unexplained mystery in this land of mysteries. It is made up of a system of underground caves and crevices in the limstone forma tion, into which billions of gallons of water from the River de Flag annually disappear. It has never been discovered where this water again comes to the surface, if ever. Some say it flows into Mormon Lake by some subterranean passage, others that it is the never-ending supply of Montezuma's Well farther to the south. During the dry season one may enter this cavern through a small opening and, once inside, can explore long distances under the surface and through large rooms, but so far no one has traversed the entire length of the passage nor solved the riddle.

Directing our attention more to the northward one sees the forest interspersed with open grassy parks, checkered with fields of ripening grain, and studded here and there with lesser peaks, such as Elden Mountain, Sunset Crater and Cave Hill.

This latter is a mound of cinders thrown up long ago by volcanic action. The crown of this hill is pitted with dozens of caves which legend says were once used by Navajo warriors. Broken pottery, human bones, stone hatchets, war-paint and arrow-heads all bespeak the cruel massacre which once took place there between Navajo and Apache. This spot is seldom visited by tourists and several caves still remain untouched just as they were on that ancient day when the survivors left them.

Most of the landscape between Cave Hill and Sunset Crater is entirely volcanic in its origin and aspect. In this vicinity can be found over two hundred dead pits which once poured forth molten lava in all directions, and now for miles around the base of Sunset Crater lie wide black valleys denuded of vegetation, whose bottoms are encrusted with great masses of jagged rock, formidable, vicious, impassable patches on which there is no living thing. But here in the midst of these "weird and sinister monuments" Nature chooses to spring one of her unaccountable surprises. And so a few feet under the surface we find the Ice Caves, where, a' la Ripley again, ice can be found the whole year through. A favorite diversion is to pienic at this point and make ice cream and ice cold drinks with ice from this cave.

If one be so inclined, he may follow the trail through the cinders to the summit of Sunset Crater and there gaze down into the crater, a desolate spectacle the rim of which is formed by oxides of iron and other brightly colored volcanic ash. This is what gives the mountain its name, for no matter at what hour or in what weather the peak is viewed, it appears always to be crowned with the last glow of the sunset, like a bed of embers among the dead hills of black cinders which surround it. An old-timer explained the phenomenon by