Oak Creek Canyon

The compelling beauty of Oak Creek Canyon in northern Arizona defies adequate description and it is without question unsurpassed in the vast scope of nature's handiwork and artistry. Writers have found superlatives wanting in attempts to portray its loveliness, and artists have striven to match its riotous shadings of color. Motion picture producers have trained their cameras upon this scenic masterpiece, while camera enthusiasts in countless number 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's splendor. Only in driving through its miles of scenic grandeur. experiencing its thrilling silence, its inspiring colorings and formations, dancing lights and shadows can one be imbued in full measure with its intrinsic beauty and gorgeous panorama.

Oak Creek Canyon cuts through the Coconino National Forest for a distance of some eighteen miles and is traversed by 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 which during the winter months are covered with snow. In the southernmost end, orchards and truck gardens flourish throughout the year with products ranging in wide variety, from English walnuts to tobacco. Oak Creek peaches, plums, pears, grapes and apples are noted for excellence of flavor. The canyon is at its colorful best in its fall garb of brilliant orange, yellow and gold.

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 side the vivid white and red sandstone cliffs, through the breaks of which move dancing shadows caused by the early or late sun filtering through.

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, because of its magnificence, has been the setting for numerous motion pictures. Thousands of oddly 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 miles of these unusual granite monoliths.

The road climbs up the sides of copper-laden Mingus Mountain where the unique mining town of Jerome clings precariously to the ragged 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, especially when it is learned that, due to extensive blasting and excavating, the mountain-side upon which Jerome is built, actually is moving away from its original site. 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, ruin 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 is reached, which is the entrance to Lower Oak Creek Canyon, great red-tipped sandstone bluffs, towers and peaks loom in the distance in amazing color combin ations and formations, from white, to buff and brown to red tip. Entering the mouth of Oak Creek Canyon, an area noted for its trout fishing as well as excellence of irrigated fruit and garden products, the spell of the canyon becomes imminent. The sheer beauty of the canyon forbids speed of any sort as every new vista brings gasps of admiration and 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 The highway descends by easy switchbacks from the Lookout, 2,000 feet down to the floor of Oak Creek Canyon, where it twists through red-walled gorges and miles of beautiful trees, ferns and flowers.

From Schnebley Hill, a vast panorama of vari-colored rock cliffs forms one of the most brilliant scenes in Arizona. Norman G. Wallace photo.

rocks. Towering cliffs and castle-like rock formations of vari-colored sandstone rise sometimes to a thousand feet above the road bed, entirely enveloping 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 uppermost edges.

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, fireplaces, restrooms, and cold spring water. Among such camps are Banjo Bill, Slide Rock, Pine Flat camp grounds. There are also Indian Gardens and the Junipine camps privately operated, as well as the more luxurious Oak Creek Lodge and the Call Of The Canyon Lodge with hotel rooms, meals and accomodations, stores, cabins, and at the latter, a swimming pool.

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 the inevitable climax, the fishermen's sizzling 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.

The grandeur of the massive canyon walls is enhanced by their orange-yellow ledges, saffron seams and fissures, and towering russett buttes, Oak Creek cuts its way through deep ravines and narrow gorges. The sweep of the Oak Creek country is overpowering. Hygrade Studio photos.