Oak Creek's Fantastic West Fork

An Appreciation There is no better place to take time out than in the pristine wilderness of the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon. The smooth, easy trail makes for the perfect leisure hike. Jerry Sieve Arizona is my not-enough country. Not enough time. Not enough energy. Not enough film. To see it all. To do it all. To put it all on Kodak film for keeps. You have to leave Arizona out of Wordsworth's grumbling: “The world is too much with us . . . getting and spending we lay waste our powers.” What's to get and what's to spend when you enjoy Arizona? It costs nothing to watch the ducks on the Gila, or gather the juniper for your fireplace at Beaver Creek. The bass in Alamo Lake are free. Who pays to snowshoe Munds Park? Or float the Verde River in a tube? And I'm not talking about discount purchases. Let's face it, from the Grand Canyon on down . . . Arizona is full retail. I think my wife put her finger on it when she said, “Arizona makes me feel like gold.” Arizona places the value in you, it asks not that you pay for it. Except in time, and energy, and film. Always the film. For everything you see is so much more than you ever saw before, and you don't think you'll ever see anything that great again. So it's take a step then take a picture. Like this weekend. I'm hiking the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon. And it's getting dark, and I want to reach that place where the canyon walls get so pinched (about three miles) you're obliged to wade the stream to go on.

But do I make time? No. I gawk and gush and stand in awe, then fumble the gadgets on the black box and snap a picture. Only to wonder if film could ever duplicate that. That which stands as a thousand-foot wall of solid rock. The thing's a quarter-mile long. Man could never have built it. Or painted it. Or remembered it. And I also know, man has made no black box that can carry it home and keep it for me, forever. How many steps do I take before the oak tree in gold leaf stops me as forcefully as a flat palm slapped against my chest. Each leaf looks to have a light bulb in it. These are not trees, they're lanterns. Then a breeze stirs, and the leaves let loose their stems and cascade down, swirling, drifting, sliding to meet the frostbitten bracken, then drop to earth. And I'm holding my breath, clicking the camera, and knowing it will not show the leaf in flight. Only your heart can recall it, for the mind was made for the believable. But there's more. More than sights. What of the stretch of trail you meet beyond the two-mile signpost? There where the air hunkers still and cold. You physically feel it as you walk through. It lays on the back of your neck, on the front of your legs above the knees. And you feel the dust of the trail grow solid, then damp. And you look ahead to see the sun and hurry to catch it.

Or you near the stream and it is in-visible. What is a stepping stone and what is submerged rock? But the sound of it. The soft murmur, the gurgle. The tinkle-giggle.it makes when the rock you thought was high and dry turns out to be deep and wet.

The Canyon must enjoy my being there more than I enjoy it. It does to me all that man hopes to do to man. To impress him. To stop him in his tracks. To make him listen. To make him appreciate. To make him revere, and if not that, then to respect, and if not that, to let him have his way.

The Canyon has its way. I leave only footsteps, and these will be blown away or covered by lighted leaves or washed printless by snow or rain.

And I must rush for there's never enough time. But the Canyon is time. That's what it has more of than mass or beauty or power. It was there before I came, and it will be there after I'm gone.

The Canyon is not an event. That's what Americans seem to seek so much of these days. The clash of shoulder pads. The grunt of exertion. The scream of damnation or acclaim. Where's the pomp and circumstance? The victor with hand on Bible taking the oath of high office, or the toothless gladiator saying to 40 million people, "Hello Mom," the better-mousetrap manufacturer taking delivery of his first Mercedes. The father nodding his head as the smooth-muscled mountain climber on television tops the peak and an over-voice says, "That's no downstream beer."

There are lunatics to appease as they commandeer jetliners and ask for four salami sandwiches, four Cokes, and $10 million to be spent in Slobovia. There are pleasures that may cause cancer, a flu virus that's on its way, a new diet-cure for arthritis.

Somewhere a boy leaps over 14 school buses flying on his motor-cycle.

Everything is acclaimed, much is staged, and all of it talked about ad nauseam.

But not in the Canyon.

Time is beyond issues and events. And the Canyon is time.

The Canyon cares not for voices. Scream till you're sore of throat. Nor will a rock thrown in the creek alter its passage. Fell a tree and the void will fill.

There's always fear of a forest fire. That can be real and devastating. And when too many people enter the Canyon the animals who would like to live there must go their way.

But all in all, the Canyon is people-proof.

You enter it and it stands above it all. For no matter the acquired power of man, the Canyon has the one thing man can never have. It has time.

And I guess that's why I go there and walk its trail and wade its stream, eat my beef jerky on a rock and watch the rill, feel the sun on my shoulders and listen to the munch of leaves underfoot. For those few hours even I become timeless.

The magic of autumn, perhaps the most beautiful season in the West Fork area, where sunlight shining through crisp fall air turns the gold of oak leaves into lanterns and the ice in the creek into jewels.

Remember when as kids we, too, staged events? And we ran and grabbed and yelled, playing ball in sandlots, until our hearts pounded in our ears, the blood distended our thin necks, and, gasping, we threw ourselves, spreadeagled, to the ground and begged, "Time out."

If you need time out, join me. The Canyon is there for everyone. As there are all kinds of people with all kinds of needs, so there are all kinds of canyons with all kinds of fulfillments. The West fork of Oak Creek Canyon welcomes the loafing hiker, the stove-up hiker, the kid, the octogenarian, the lame, and the weak.

The trail is gradual and, for the most part, smooth. The incline is gentle, and even if you do cross the creek ten times in two miles, a slip will just cover the top of your boot, not see you in to your head.

There are great elephant-size boulders where you can sit and rest.

Hurry and you can catch the sun to keep warm.

Or if you feel too hot, just lean on a ponderosa. Its umbrella will shade you.

But know this. You'll not walk this canyon with your head down. Matter of fact, about two miles in, you'll find your hand going to the back of your neck, rubbing it. And then you'll realize. You can't keep from looking up. The walls that trip the clouds. The trees that shine in daylight. The shriek of hawks. The songs of birds. They all draw your eye to sky, and the neck can't take it.

But you'd be wrong if you said the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon is a pain in the neck. As it takes your mind off what's up front, or down at your feet, it also takes your mind off what you left behind or what you must go back to.

I know of no better place to take Time Out.

You come, too. All it takes is a pair of hiking shoes, a quart of water, something to munch on, a wrap if you stay 'till sundown, and a day pack to carry your film. For the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon eats film. If it hadn't been made by God I'd swear it was erected by Eastman-Kodak.

You see several private homes along Oak Creek. Look closer, there's two stout wood posts with a log chain hanging between them. That's where you enter.

Overnight camping and campfires are permitted only past the 6-mile point in the Canyon, and even then you must have permission from the Forest Ser-vice. Firearms are also forbidden anywhere along the West Fork.

You can park your car on the narrow easement beside the highway, or look for a public lot about 200 yards north of the log-chain entrance, you can leave your car here from 9:00 a.m. till 8:00 p.m.

Ideally, you'll enter the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon around 10:00 a.m. (without dallying, the average person walks 2 miles an hour on trail) and return to your car about 4:00 p.m. You'll want to be in the canyon mid-day for that's when the sun stands high and lights the canyon floor. Before 10:00 or after 4:00 the canyon lays in shadow.

And know this, Oak Creek is a major stream that follows the highway north and south. The west fork of Oak Creek is a tributary to this main body of water, runs east and west, and is generally ankle deep. Don't confuse the two.

As with any Arizona canyon, never enter when there's rain upstream. Too great a chance of flash floods.

For those who would like to explore the whole length of the West Fork of Oak Creek, bring provisions for 12 linear miles, and purchase section map Dutton Hill, Ariz. N3500 W11145/ 7.5 from the U. S. Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado, 80225. You'll also need to gain permission from officials of the Coconino National Forest, United States Department of Agriculture, Flagstaff, Arizona.