Arizona — Land of Many Seasons

As these words are written at the start of another Christmas Season the thermometer reads 74, and this reminds me to look ahead to next summer in Arizona. When I relax on the front porch of a cabin overlooking the ninth fairway of the Alpine, Arizona, Country Club next August, the high temperature for that day should also be about 74 degrees. We have more than four seasons to look forward to the Arizona resident or visitor has a choice of several dozen seasons each year, and some of those found during summer are among our most enjoyable. If you are beguiled by Phoenix newspaper ads offering a return to a four-season way of life with the XYZ XYZ Widgit Corporation somewhere back east, take another look around your state, Mr. Electronics Engineer. I've already experienced seven different autumns so far this year, and there should be another two or three yet to be seen. If you will do a bit of driving throughout the year it should be easy to find twentyfive to thirty different seasons in Arizona, with a choice of two or sometimes even three different seasons every day. So let someone else design the next generation of widgit, Mr. Engineer. We want you here in Arizona, where you can pick and choose your own season any weekend, just as you design and plan new business computers or integrated circuits from Monday through Friday.

And now for you, Mr. Big City Commuter. How about spending your next summer vacation in Arizona? That ought to be good for a few raised eyebrows from your bridge game group on the 8:14. But haven't you and everyone else in the block been to Europe twice now, and aren't you ready for a change of scene from Florida or Bermuda? Try our commuter special the 8:45 nonstop jet from New York to Phoenix. You will be behind the wheel of an air-conditioned rental car at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport before noon, and should be whacking golf balls around in Arizona's cool White Mountains that same afternoon.

As some obscure sage observed, getting there is half the fun, and I suggest that sea-level dwellers make the transition from Sea Level, Connecticut, to the 8,500-foot elevation of Alpine, Arizona, in a two-day journey that eases the altitude adjustment and also discloses some remarkable scenery along Arizona's highways and byways. The Beeline Highway, Arizona 87, heading northeastward from Phoenix to Payson, should be your route. An overnight stop at a place such as Kohl's Ranch Lodge at the banks of Tonto Creek, east of Payson, is just the ticket for acclimation de luxe. (Payson, too, offers fine accommodations!) At 5,500 feet, the afternoon air is warm enough to make the swimming pool feel good after your trip, and evening breezes are sufficiently cool to indicate what another 3,000 feet of altitude will provide in natural air conditioning up there in the White Mountains. At Kohl's Ranch you are in the middle of the three million acres of Tonto National Forest, a sight that should dispel forever any thought you might have had of Arizona as a land of only sand and cactus.

East of Kohl's Ranch the road, now Arizona 160, climbs steadily from the Tonto Basin, an area made famous by Zane Grey in his classic of the west, Under the Tonto Rim, and crests out on top of the Mogollon Rim. This steep bluff, which marks a general dividing line between Northern and Southern Arizona, provides one of the great viewpoints of our nation. As far as the eye can reach, and, as Raymond Carlson once said, "You can see for a week and half," there is nothing but pine forest in sight. No billboards, no hot dog stands, just three million acres of trees, which is a heap of timber.

At this spot trout fishing and boating fun are nearby at Woods Canyon Lake, one of several man-made recreational lakes recently constructed in the region along the top of the Mogollon Rim. This is also a good place for a picnic lunch under the pines peanut butter and jelly will taste as good as that three-star meal you had in Paris last year.

Another opportunity for family activity is found a few miles west of Snowflake, where a huge new paper mill of Southwest Forest Industries offers guided tours of the highly efficient plant that produces newsprint and kraft board. This is high plateau country, not yet in the White Mountains, but near enough to draw on the vast forests of that region for part of the raw materials used in papermaking.

The true White Mountain gateway is Show Low, a town named for the turn of a card in a game of lowball poker. Show Low today is an important travel center on U. S. 60, with excellent accommodations and facilities for the traveling public. The pine forest reappears at the edge of Show Low, as Arizona 173 goes southeast through the popular summer resort towns of Lakeside and Pinetop, the latter noted as site of the beautiful White Mountain Country Club, a private golf course among pine groves at an altitude of more than 7,000 feet.

McNary is the next stop, where tours may be made through one of the largest of all sawmills, handling millions of board feet of Ponderosa pine each year, with all operations seemingly conducted at breakneck speed. Here, too, is the starting and terminating point of the White Mountain Scenic Railway, which gives the younger generation a great opportunity to experience the fun and excitement of a train ride behind a real steam locomotive. (See Jo Jeffers, "The White Mountain Scenic Railroad," ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, July, 1966, for details of this daily excursion during the summer.) Eastward from McNary the road, now Arizona 73, goes through some of the nicest country of the Southwest, rising gradually through the pines into aspen groves, and finally into a vast "cienega," or open meadow space, at an altitude of more than 9,000 feet, before descending into Eagar and Springerville. It's fun to watch the altitude change on a trip such as this, and I would recommend purchase of an altimeter for journeys into Arizona's high country. The peak on the south side of this road is Mount Baldy, elevation 11,590 feet, second in Arizona only to Mount Humphreys of the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff.

A short side trip to the south gives a glimpse of Greer, a picturesque village located on the banks of the Little Colorado River, which is a sparkling clear trout stream at this point on its headwaters, giving little indication that it ends up at its juncture with the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon as one of the muddiest of all streams.

Springerville, and its companion town of Eagar, serve as major travel and trading centers on the eastern edge of the White Mountain area, just as Show Low performs this function to the west. This is farmland and grazing land at 7,000 feet, watered by the same Little Colorado River. U. S. 180 and U. S. 666 lead south from Springerville through Nutrioso and on to the goal of this journey, Alpine, Arizona.

But enough travelogue. Our visitor probably would like to have some idea of just what sort of a place is Alpine, how large a town, what exciting activities does it offer, etc. I immediately think of the experience of a famed automotive critic who asked the Rolls Royce distributor in New York the horsepower of the latest model. The answer was "Sufficient." I just can't guess what population Alpine might boast probably a few hundred persons. I am sure, however, that it is "sufficient." Sufficient to provide merchandising facilities to residents of the area, and sufficient to accommodate a fair number of visitors with lodging and services. And more than sufficient in terms of friendly atmosphere and concern for both resident and visitor and their needs.

The best summation of Alpine comes from a basic source of Arizona lore that should accompany every motorist touring the state: ARIZONA PLACE NAMES lists every named place and tells much about the background and history of each name. In the case of Alpine, the notation reads, simply, "Descriptive."

The mountains are soft and rolling, rather than sharp and jagged, but the setting and atmosphere are, indeed, very reminiscent of scenes seen by my son, Frank, and myself during our motor tour of the Swiss Alps in the autumn of 1965. The watchwords are, in my opinion, "peace and tranquility."

What to do in Alpine? Well, my first thought would be to sit in a rocking chair for a couple of days, and then about the third day start to rock, slowly. If more excitement than this is demanded, there are three possibilities, all of them good.

First is golf at Alpine Country Club, a few miles south-east of town. The setting among both pine and aspen groves is magnificent, and a golf ball hit with vigor at 8,000 feet altitude really takes off. The nine-hole grass course is well maintained under the direction of co-owner and manager Lawrence Gay. Facilities available include pro shop, electric carts, restaurant, motel, and cabins. The most important ingredient, however, is one that I would term "family interest." While some of the more elegant and more crowded courses would view dimly such proceedings, I found it quite gratifying to see entire families enjoying "togetherness" on the links, with Pa, Ma, and all kids large enough to swing a club taking turns at it. It looked to me as though they were finding the real fun that is in the game.

The second thing to do around Alpine is to enjoy fishing and boating on Luna Lake, which is also just east of town and directly north of the country club. The lake is well stocked with rainbow trout, and facilities for camping and picnicking are being constructed in the area.

Since I am no fisherman and am a golf duffer, the third possibility, exploration and photography of Blue Canyon and the Coronado Trail area, is the one that took most of my time not spent in sitting and/or rocking last summer in Alpine. The road that leads towards the golf course continues south about twenty miles to its end at Blue Post Office, in the middle of a land of red cliffs, green trees and fields, and a happy little river. "Down on the Blue" is the prettiest place that I have found in Arizona, and I've been looking for a long time. It's a dirt road, but that's the best kind. No traffic problems will bother you down there, and you will find picture possibilities around every bend of the river.

Another dirt road heads west out of the canyon of the Blue River to join U. S. 666 at Beaverhead Lodge on the Coronado Trail, making a nice loop trip to come back to Alpine, or to include a trip about fifteen miles farther south on U. S. 666 to another great viewpoint at K. P. Cienega. Your altimeter will read over 9,000 feet at this spot, and the view extends into New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.

A couple of weeks of this kind of life, Mr. Commuter, and you will return to the Madison Avenue fracas recharged, rarin' to go, and determined to pass the word on summer vacations in cool Arizona to others.

Now, about some of those other seasons in Arizona, such as the seven autumns I have already found this year, with more in the offing. Again, of course, it's all a matter of altitude, starting in September with the aspens near timber line on the Snow Bowl road in the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, continuing in the Kaibab National Forest around the Grand Canyon's North Rim, then the South Rim, Oak Creek Canyon (upper and then lower portions), Chiricahua National Monument (the Wonderland of Rocks) in southeastern Arizona's Cochise County, and then to Sabino Canyon near Tucson. Still to come in December and January will be autumn in the lowlands of the Colorado River at Parker, Lake Havasu City and Bullhead City.

Spring, needless to say, works the other way around, and gets under way in those same lowlands along the Colorado River in January. Thus, winter is bypassed completely in that region, while autumn and springtime actually overlap. The color of spring marches up the slopes and hillsides until the photographer finds himself recording the arrival of spring in the White Mountains in September! As I said, a season in Ohio or Massachusetts is something a fellow can see and measure and count on. "It's autumn in New England," someone says, and we all know what that means, and we know it is great. But autumn, or any other season in Arizona, is just plumb perplexing! Pick out the season that you want, and it ought to be found somewhere in these 113,909 square miles that we call Amazing Arizona.

The Sky! Exalted and eternal; implacable, wild and beautiful. The Sky - to which some men are drawn like lost children going home. The Sky: sometimes Mother; sometimes Lover; sometimes Savage Master . . .

The HP-7 was going home by aero tow and maintaining radio contact with its towplane, which was carrying passengers. They took off and flew west out of Elmira, climbing steadily, past cloud base, 4000 feet above terrain, past 6000, 7000, 9000, toward the upper air where a sailplane cannot go unless it is towed, where the air is flat and smooth, above cloud, and it is easier to fly on a long cross-country tow. They were off course to the south, and the pilot in the tow ship headed for a deep notch in a building cumulus cloud. This was questioned, both in the towplane and by the pilot in the HP-7, but the tow pilot went on without a turn. Driven by a strange feeling of competition? Must he outclimb the cloud? As they approached cloud, the race to outclimb the rising gorge became very near. The tow pilot, using full throttle, raised the nose of his aircraft higher and higher to increase his rate of climb. Speed fell off. The pilot in the sailplane frantically asked for more power; he asked for speed he was very near the stall. The towplane dropped its nose a little and at once they were going through a narrow canyon of mist; then instantly it closed about them and both aircraft were immersed in luminous white vapor and thrown around in heavy turbulence. The pilot in the sailplane had his electric turn-and-bank instrument on; he felt a violent pull downward which vanished as quickly as it started then he sensed the towrope had broken.

In every direction, turbulence and blinding white, so thick he could not see his wingtips. A glance at the panel showed the turn-and-bank needle pegged, the ball of the instrument was as far as it could go the other way the sigh of air noise in the cockpit quickly turned into a whistle and grew louder. He knew he was diving. The towplane, thrown over on its back, shuddered and went into a spin. After many turns from which the pilot could not recover, the plane fell out the side of the cloud, and suddenly they were in clear air, where the pilot recovered his level, upright attitude, and all those in the towplane were now looking behind at the boiling white mass they had left. They knew they would see nothing, but could not help looking back and with eyes of frozen fascination, they saw the broken towrope, without a steel eye at the far end, unburdened now, dangling free.IN THE SAILPLANE, there was a fight against panic as the mind spread terrible seconds into what seemed minutes. He remembered to use gentle control movements and tried to straighten his turn by rudder pressure while the whistle of air changed into a roar, then into a howling, buffeting scream. The cloud brew darker, and he knew he was getting near the bottom. No feeling of speed, even though he was diving at hundreds of miles per hour only a blind, gray world of crashing sound then he burst through cloud base and saw ground only a little way down; and instinctively, convulsively, with an agony of terror, he pulled the stick back as far as it would come an explosion like a cannon right at his ear, and he looked to see the wing gone; took a smashing blow on the shoulder and another on the head, and half the other wing had gone; then an instant pull to get off the harness and open the canopy a tearing of heavy air at his body as he was free, then a plunge at the chest with his right hand but he caught the fastener buckle in the middle instead of getting the ripcord ring on the left side. Then there wasn't anything more.

An EYE on the ground might have looked up, attracted by the sound of two explosions, and seen an unguided, white bomb falling; something coming out of it with the unbelievable appearance of a human figure, then two other white things falling one spinning as it fell, with the unlikeliness of an arm falling free of the body; and separate metallic crunches as the pieces struck earth.

The towplane landed in a field across from where the sailplane had fallen. The pilot got out, ran across the road and saw. Then he burst into tears and stumbled to the ground: "I made a terrible mistake today. I made a terrible mistake today. I made a terrible mistake today."

(from Soaring for Diamonds)

WHAT IS SOARING ALL ABOUT?

If you listened to most pilots you would think it could only be expressed in terms of an aspect ratio, a degree of penetration and a rate of sink; but soaring is many things, and to describe it is almost as vain an effort as telling a wide-eyed schoolboy what it is to make love, or a blind man what it is to see the moon through a row of poplar trees, bending in the autumn wind. It is the tightness in your chest as the towline draws out straight and you are off the ground. It is the frustration of discovering no lift at all and returning to the field fifteen minutes after being towed aloft. It is everyone suddenly materializing to pull you out of the riverbed after a forced landing, and doing the same yourself on a blistering hot Sunday when anyone in his right senses would be home. It is the memories of a first National Soaring Contest . . . In the early darkness I headed west through Grand Prairie, Arlington, Fort Worth, Weatherford, and Mineral Wells all places I had soared over. In the mirror I could see the wing roots of my Baby Albatross, gleaming red from the taillights; and the pod which was outlined as a shadow from the lights of cars behind. In the back seat were my trophies, and a Texas Soaring Association banner which had been made to celebrate the Twenty-third National Soaring Contest. I also carried home the memory of that feel and sound of rushing air under wings in the strong burst of energy which is a thermal that sends your rate-of-climb needle to the top; the intimacy with the sky and exaltation as you soar upward; and seeing leaves of corn fifteen hundred feet above the earth, falling slowly after being carried so high in a powerful updraft. I was taking home a memory of the Jenny Mae getting airborne on tow its drooping, slender wings rising to straightness as the speed increased, then bending upward as the sailplane left the ground, as if in thankful prayer for the glory of flight. And the soaring people! Like no other people on earth, because their love of the sky is so great. I took home the laughing-light feel in the chest that comes when you are soaring under a strong cloud and there are fair-weather cumuli in all directions to the horizon, and you hope it will not ever end. I never really came down from those flights.

For Those Who STRIVE, soaring can be the challenge of going after the Silver C, Golden C, and Diamond C emblems, all international awards. Diamond and Golden C pilots are celebrated on two plaques displayed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Years ago, at the request of the Soaring Society of America, I wrote the following inscription in their honor: "These awards are won by men flying alone on quiet wings in the ever-changing battlefield of the sky. They have known the terrors of rotor cloud, the crash of hail on metal, the growing of ice on leading edges and canopy, the near flash of lightning under a black overcast; and the agony of staying aloft in zero-sink, a few thousand feet over brutal terrain, while the sweat runs and nerves pull taut. They have known the disappointments, the flights which almost came off, the near misses, the times when only one little factor made the weather wrong. They have also known the exaltation of the heights when, shivering from cold, with a heavy pull of oxygen through their mask, they have seen range after range of mountains growing fainter blue with distance, and over them blazing cumulus clouds towering toward heaven; they have circled with the hawk and have glided down at the end of a long day of soaring with knowledge that when the keel of their sailplane touched earth again it would touch beyond a magic circle on their chart, indicating a flight of 300 or 500 kilometers, and the glow of triumph overcame deadening fatigue. "These pilots have celebrated the wedding feast of man's beating heart, the slender wing, and the sky."

about the author JOSEPH C. LINCOLN

Joseph C. Lincoln is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, where he was born in June, 1922. His father, John C. Lincoln, was founder of the Lincoln Electric Company of Cleveland, and a founder of Camelback Inn. The elder Lincoln took over Bagdad Copper Corporation in 1944 and ran it until his death, in 1959.

The Lincoln family came to Arizona in December of 1931, and Mr. Lincoln went to Judson School from then until 1939. He graduated from North Phoenix High School and had two years at Pomona College before enlisting in the Army Air Corps, in which he served for three years. During 1946 he returned to college at the University of Arizona, where he graduated in 1947. He was married in December of that year and has four children.

In 1952 he started the Glassart stained glass studio, which has done windows from San Francisco to Rhode Island. (See Wonderful World of Glass, ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, November, 1965.) Recent important commissions include a space divider, done in wood and faceted glass, in the administration building of the Oldsomobile factory in Michigan, the giant windows for Saint Ambrose Church in Salt Lake City, the windows for the Valley Presbyterian Church and Trinity Cathedral in Phoenix.

Lincoln was an originator of Phoenix Point West magazine in 1959, and four years later became its publisher and editor. In late 1965 a successor organization was formed, which now publishes the Arizona Wildlife Sportsman and is coming out with its first hard-cover book. The author began soaring in 1956 at Falcon Field, near Mesa. He has competed in national soaring contests at Elmira, New York; Grand Prairie and Odessa, Texas; Bishop, California; and McCook, Nebraska. Between 1958 and 1960 he was a vice president of the Soaring Society of America. Mr. Lincoln's book, Soaring for Diamonds, was published in October of 1964 by Northland Press in Flagstaff, 213 pages, $6.50.

and his book SOARING FOR DIAMONDS

As these pages are going to press, the second edition of "Soaring For Diamonds" is being printed, with revisions bringing all record data up to date. This book by Mr. Lincoln, a classic in soaring literature, is available at fine book stores. Readers who may not have convenient book store outlets can order direct from ARIZONA HIGHWAYS magazine, 2036 West Lewis, Phoenix, Arizona 85009. Price is $6.50. Please add 25 cents for mailing and handling charges. (See ARIZONA HIGHWAYS, September, 1963, for the story of Northland Press.) It is the first major work about soaring by an American since 1940.

Diamond C

In ascending order of difficulty, there are a number of soaring emblems known as the C, Silver C, Golden C, and Diamond C that pilots can strive for. The flight requirements are the same in every country, and for all C awards a pilot must fly the sailplane alone. For the C pin he must keep his aircraft above release altitude for a period of five minutes. Back in the 1920's and early 1930's this was a difficult thing to achieve; soaring was rare the great part of motorless flying consisted of downhill glides. To win a Diamond C, in addition to getting the lower pins, there are three requirements: a distance flight of five hundred kilometers (311 miles); a flight to a goal announced before takeoff that is at least three hundred kilometers away (187 miles); and an altitude gain of five thousand meters (16,404 feet). In 1959 Mr. Lincoln became the first Arizona man to win the Diamond C. He was only the fifteenth American and the one hundred and seventieth man in the world to earn this high soaring award. Two of the author's Diamond flights began at Prescott, Arizona. One carried over the Continental Divide to Albuquerque, New Mexico 326 miles. The other was an altitude flight which exceeded 26,000 feet. Soaring for Diamonds is the story of his flying from his first ride in a sailplane up through his final Diamond flight.

In 1960 the author won the Barringer Trophy, a national award given annually to the soaring pilot who makes the longest flight in the United States other than at the national soaring contest. He soared 455.5 miles from Prescott, Arizona, to Variadero, New Mexico. The following year he was elected to the Helms Soaring Hall of Fame, which includes such notables as Dr. Paul B. MacCready, world soaring champion in 1956, William S. Ivans and Richard E. Schreder, world record holders, and the Wright brothers.