Oak Creek Canyon

"A Symphony in Sandstone"

THE compelling beauty of Oak Creek Canyon in Coconino county in northern Arizona defies adequate description. It is a masterpiece in scenic loveliness and a triumph in Nature's handiwork and artistry. Writers have found superlatives wanting in vigorous attempts to portray its beauty, and artists have striven in vain to match its riotous shadings of color. Motion picture artisans have trained their cameras upon this scenic jewel, while camera enthusiasts in countless numbers have matched wit and skill in efforts to record the symphony of buttes, tree-laden heights and tumbling singing waters. But the combined efforts of all the crafts cannot fully present the true picture of Oak Creek Canyon's splendor. Only in driving through its miles of grandeur, exper-iencing its thrilling silence, its inspiring colorings and formations, dancing lights and shadows can one be imbued in full measure of its intrinsic beauty and gorgeous panorama.

Oak Creek canyon cuts through the Coconino National Forest for a distance of some eighteen miles and is traversedby an all-paved highway which winds and climbs across the canyon's floor, leading through its most spectacular features and paralleling most of the way, the rippling green waters of Oak Creek itself. Members of the National Geographic Society have proclaimed this highway as "the most beautiful drive in America." The altitude of the canyon ranges from four to seven thousand feet, and the climate is always invigorating. At the northernmost end stand tall pine trees that during the winter months are covered with snow. In the southern end, orchards and truck gardens flourish throughout the year with products ranging in wide variety, from English walnuts to tobacco. Oak Creek peaches, pears, grapes and apples are noted for

The excellence of flavor. The canyon is at its colorful best in its fall garb of brilliant orange, yellow and gold, the many types of trees, maple, sycamore, oak among them, having been transformed from conventional greens to form contrasts in profusion with the perennial evergreens that rise in majestic splendor.

side by vivid white and red sandstone cliffs through the breaks of which move dancing shadows caused by the early or late sun filtering through, lending a magical touch to the ethereal beauty of the sylvan scene.

The entire trip over all-paved State Highway 79 from Prescott to Flagstaff offers a delightful variety of scenery and surprises. Granite Dells, a few miles north of Prescott, has been the setting for numerous pictures because of its magnificence. Thousands of oddlyly shaped rocks, hundreds of balanced rocks, some weighing many tons, unfold in this garden of white, pink and brown granite formations. The highway passes through twelve miles of these unusual granite monoliths.

Preferably this trip should be taken in early morning or late afternoon. The floor of the canyon is sheltered by giant woods on one side, and on the other The road climbs up the sides of copper-laden Mingus Mountain where the unique mining town of Jerome clings precariously to the jagged mountain side. By night the town appears hitched to the stars. By day travelers marvel at the sight of the houses and buildings braced on stilts on their lofty perches, and the apparent unconcern of the natives.

Beyond Jerome is the model smelter town of Clarkdale, constructed by the Phelps Dodge Corporation, and quite in contrast with the usual mining town.

A few miles out of Clarkdale is Tuzigoot National Monument, ruins of an ancient pueblo built of stone mortared with mud and now being restored. An excellent museum containing artifacts taken from the ruin is at the site. As Sedona in Coconino county is reached, which is the entrance to lower Oak Creek Canyon, great red-tipped sandstone bluffs tower and peaks loom in the distance in amazing color combiproducts, the spell of the canyon benations and formations, from white, to comes imminent. The sheer beauty of the canyon forbids speed of any sort as every new vista brings gasps of admiration or surprise.

The highway skims along the canyon floor paralleling the rippling cold waters of trout-laden Oak Creek, fighting its way over falls and through beds of pastel blue rocks. Towering cliffs and castle-like rock formations of vari-colored sandstone rising sometimes to a thousand feet above the road bed, entirely envelop the cool depths of the canyon itself. The rich reds, magenta, carmine, and scarlet of the sculptured walls and buttes blend with the green ferns, magenta Indian paintbrushes, purple asters, bluebells, lavender pink primroses, yellow columbines, and golden mescal that border the creek bed and canyon floor and contrast with the tall pines that rim the canyons upper-most edges.

Several miles up Oak Creek Canyon, Highway 79 crosses a bridge over Wilson canyon, Wilson creek being a tributary of Oak Creek. This bridge, completed last year, is one of the most beautiful bridges in the state highway system. It was named Midgley Bridge in honor of Major W. W. Midgley of Flagstaff, pioneer Arizona good road advocate and one of the driving forces in the completion of the Oak Creek Canyon highway.

The cool quiet of Oak Creek offers many recreational areas and camp sites. The Forest Service has constructed several for public use with tables, benches, rest-rooms, and cold spring water. Among such camps are Banjo Bill, Slide Rock, Pine Flat camp grounds. There are also the Indian Gardens and the Juniper camps privately operated, as well as the more luxurious Oak Creek Lodge and the Call of the Canyon Lodge with hotel rooms, meals and accommodations, stores, cabins, and at the latter, a swimming pool. Several very excellent guest ranches are found in the vicinity. Near the head of upper Oak Creek is the Oak Creek Fish Hatchery and Rearing Ponds where 200,000 rainbow beauties are in the process of becoming eligible to receive the fateful fly of lucky fishermen, and reach the inevitable climax, the fishermen's skillets.

The highway climbs abruptly to the summit of upper Oak Creek. From the lookout at the brink of the gorge, the sight back over the terrain just traversed is awe-inspiring. Four tiers of concrete ribbon are seen, each below the other, at the head of the descent-winding, twisting in a series of graceful curves down 2,000 feet in five miles, to the floor of the canyon. Beyond this, a forest of green envelops the gorge with the pastel-tinted rock cliffs appearing in view here and there as if constructed by the most careful planning of an architect. From Oak Creek Canyon the highway passes through a dense forest of pine into Flagstaff, the hub city of a vast wonderland of natural and man-made thrills, known as the "Enchanted Circle," and including the Grand Canyon National Park, Petrified Forest National Monument and Painted Desert; Boulder Dam and Lake Mead, the Hopi Indian Villages and the Navajo country; Meteor Crater; Canyon de Chelly, Sunset Crater, Rainbow Bridge, Montezuma Castle, Navajo, Wupatki and Walnut Canyon National Monuments all accessible over good highways and easily reached from several points within the state.