The Wilderness Next Door

A rich array of natural parkland exists in and around the ninth largest city in the United States.

Mountains have been many things to many people, but none have seen them whole. Like all great mysteries they are greater than the sum of their parts, and familiarity but defines better the terms of their enigma.

On a rocky ridge yellow brittlebush swirls in a gentle breeze, jagged rocks conceal a cache of speckled brown eggs nestled like Easter candy in soft grass, butterflies cluster on flower heads, yellow and orange wings camouflaged against the blossoms. High above a lone hawk circles, hunting. While the raucous chimes of an ice cream truck jangle nearby.

Wilderness? No. Actually it's a city park. Or better, a mountain preserve surrounded by the largest city in Arizona, Phoenix. Houses and streets crowd the lower slopes, and on the topmost heights, a 360-degree panorama awaits hikers and climbers.

There are five mountain preserves, and they form a necklace of parks around Phoenix. The chain drawing them together is the Sun Circle Trail, or Arizona Trail Number One, a 110-mile loop for horseback riding, bicycling, and hiking. It winds around the valley at the foot of the mountains, following for half its length major irrigation canals. It was officially mapped and opened in 1964. Parts of the trail are still being marked, as funds become available.

The proximity of the preserves and trail to the heart of this metropolis makes an outdoor experience attractive to many who might otherwise never venture out of the city. Hikers enjoy unspoiled desert only blocks from their homes, frantic volleyball players spike balls in developed picnic areas, and families fry steaks in built-in barbecues and play softball, all in the shadow of rugged peaks, the opposite ridges of which hold no indication of human encroachment.

Begin your Sun Circle Trail tour at Granite Reef Dam and follow it south through the city of Mesa along canal banks to the farming community of Gilbert.

Due west twelve miles, along the banks of the Western Canal, brings you to South Mountain Park. The trail follows the crest of the mountain for a dozen miles, then drops to meet the Gila River on the other side of the park. Forty miles of trails within the park lead hikers into remote canyons, where a natural bridge, rock tunnel, and a "fat man's gap" entice the curious. Preserves have steep, remote trails. So wear sturdy shoes, a hat, and take a friend along. Be sure you also take enough water, a gallon a day per person minimum in warm weather.

South Mountain Park is the world's largest municipally-owned park, with 16,000 acres of desert inside its boundaries. There are picnic sites for up to 5000 people, special areas for dancing and skating, and spectacular views of downtown Phoenix.

On the other side of the ridge, the Sun Circle Trail detours around the boundary of the Gila River Indian Reservation to the corner of Estrella Mountain County Regional Park. Although the trail itself does not enter Estrella, a network of secondary trails winds around the valleys and high ridges inside the park.

Estrella Park radiates from a 4000-foot peak. Deep canyons fan out to form the star-shaped range, which gave it its name. (In Spanish Estrella means "star.") Estrella is the greenest of the preserve parks and is the only one with actual lawns. Tucked into a shallow canyon beside the Gila River are fifty-six acres of grassland with restrooms, cooking ramadas, and running water. Estrella also features an eighteenhole golf course. There's an archery range and one of the best horse arenas in the valley. Park Manager K. J. (Ken) Schultz says more facilities are planned, including a baseball complex, par jogging course, handball and racquetball courts, all "low maintenance facilities."

Just across the road from the green lawns and picnic tables, tiny lizards sun themselves on barren rocks, the only shade scrub trees and cactus.

From where the Sun Circle Trail leaves Estrella, continue to the most western point, the convergence of the Salt and Agua Fria rivers. The trail points north from here, nineteen miles to the Arizona

W I L D E R N E S S

Canal. Just above the spot where the trail veers east along Skunk Creek, Olive Avenue offers a worthwhile detour into White Tanks Regional Park.

Measuring six miles by six miles square, White Tanks is the largest park under Maricopa County jurisdiction, and the least developed. The "white tanks," for which the park was named, are actually stone depressions in the creekbed. During the rainy season, the tanks fill with water, a godsend for thirsty desert creatures.

White Tanks is a "dry" park, with no piped water. Park Manager Jim Speelman says the problem was nearly solved last summer when a well was dug, but the water comes to the surface at 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Eventually, though, water will be piped to the campsites and ramadas.

White Tanks has organized group campsites accommodating hundreds of campers, but the sites are so placed they are nearly invisible from the main park road.

Back on the trail, the Arizona Canal bank eventually leads you back toward Granite Reef Dam. But on the way you'll pass some of the more unique parkland in the world, right on the edge of the city.

The Phoenix Mountains Preserves are all one range: North Mountain, Shaw Butte, and the Papago Buttes in Papago Park. The City of Phoenix began buying land for the preserves in the 1960s and acquisition continues today. In the meantime, finished picnic areas and good roads make it easy for Phoenicians to enjoy the mountains.

Shaw Butte once was inhabited by Hohokam, probably hunting parties after bighorn sheep on annual migrations.

Every weekend with good weather other "birds" join the hawks and mockingbirds in the sky above the mountains. Hang gliders soar the air currents, their multicolored wings shining in the sunlight.

Downrange, Echo Canyon and Squaw Peak have become places to "see and be seen" for trendy hikers and joggers.

Papago Park is the most developed of the city parks. Along with an eighteen-hole golf course and Phoenix Municipal Stadium, Papago is home to the Desert Botanical Garden and Phoenix Zoo.

Perils of Proximity: the Pothunter Problem

Scribbling on rocks is a very human impulse, and it hasn't been limited to twentieth-century kids with spray cans. Long before white Europeans arrived in the Salt River Valley, where Phoenix now stands, the Hohokam recorded their lives on mountain boulders.

How much is a picture of a bighorn sheep, carved into desert rock a thousand years ago, worth?

"More than diamonds," says Howard Gillmore, recreation director for Maricopa County Parks and Recreation Department. "Each one is unique, one of a kind. If it is destroyed, it's gone forever-they're priceless."

The proximity of the mountain preserves to Phoenix makes them accessible, but it also makes them vulnerable.

Former City Archeologist Donald H. Hiser says visitors often don't understand the ancient sites in the preserves. We have entire communities of ruins.

The mountains surrounding Phoenix are sprinkled heavily with prehistoric artifacts and sites, some more than a thousand years old. Prehistoric dwellers built a network of towns and a sophisticated irrigation system "when London and Paris were a collection of wild huts inhabited by barbarians," according to Dr. Omar Turney, former Phoenix archeologist.

To discourage such activities, stiff penalties have been adopted for vandalizing or removing artifacts. Arizona and federal law provide fines up to $50,000, or five years in prison.

But the dollar value of the damage is only part of the problem. When sites are destroyed or artifacts stolen, a valuable part of the record of Arizona's past is also gone. Once a site is disturbed, the information gained by excavating is suspect.

Hiser warns that a site is not necessarily undiscovered simply because it has not been excavated. Scientists often catalog sites, and dig them only when the discoveries are likely to shed light on current research.

"If you find a site, enjoy it," Hiser advises. "Measure it, map it if you want to. Photograph it. If you find something on the surface, observe it but leave it alone.

"Don't intrude beneath the surfacethat's going to destroy the whole spatial relationship that exists between every object in that site," which often yields invaluable information on how objects were used and their age.

"It's sort of like going into a library and trying to do research," Hiser says, "and finding the one rare volume that is going to supply you with the information and the pages you need have been torn out."

SUN CIRCLE TRAIL

A 110-mile loop for hiking, horseback riding, and bicycling within the Phoenix metropolitan area, the Sun Circle Trail connects with a number of primary and secondary trails, which, in turn, lead to many of the city and county regional parks. No fee is charged.

PARKS

LAKES

PHOENIX RISING

It began with a field of hay. Watered, the desert blossomed into a great farm and grew greater still with permanent reclamation dams. Serious growth followed World War II. Where once the farms lay, housing developments arose. Then, between 1970 and 1980, the population quadrupled. And more people are expected to seek the Phoenix sun, good jobs, and pleasant surroundings. Meantime, whither Phoenix? Instant megalopolis-another Los Angeles? Or is Phoenix trying to avoid Los Angeles's mistake? Phoenix may be too young for an answer. Says Mayor Terry Goddard: "Phoenix is an adolescent who doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up."

WILDERNESS

One other side trip from the Sun Circle Trail will take you to McDowell Mountain County Regional Park. Perched high on a plateau above Scottsdale, McDowell Park is a mecca for wilderness lovers, with a huge web of horse and foot trails.

McDowell is bordered by the Fort McDowell Mohave-Apache Indian Reservation, and faint traces of the old fort's adobe walls can still be seen southwest of the park. Here is the old Pemberton Ranch. Of 1920 vintage, stock tanks and windmills only remain. The Dixie Mine is here, too. It produced both silver and gold. Now, although the claim is legally still worked, the mine is frequented only by bats and rattlesnakes.

Wildlife abounds in all the parks, even ones bordered by city streets. And the animals seem to accommodate to people. McDowell Park Manager Ken Taylor tells of describing mule deer to visitors, only to look up and realize a small herd was eavesdropping. Taylor also has met coyote and javelina, wild desert peccary. The undergrowth is so dense and the terrain so rough, that, in most parks, even large mammals go unnoticed.

Birds seem to sense that the parks are sanctuaries. Hawks and golden eagles nest in the mountains.

Estrella's Ken Schultz reports an employee of Estrella's golf course got an even closer look at park wildlife a few years ago while out in a motorized cart checking the sprinkler system one night. The cart headlights picked up a rabbit running at top speed across the course. The man wasn't surprised because rabbits are a common sight on the course at night. But a few sec(OPPOSITE PAGE) South Mountain Park. Here, beside forty miles of modern horse and hiking trails, early people left telltale traces of their passage, as did at least one Spanish explorer. His message is carved in stone and dated 1539. Today, the park plays host to 6000 visitors a day during cool-season weekends. Aware and proud of their heritage, they leave only footprints. Dick Dietrich photo (BELOW) Rugged and often steep trails abound in the regional parks. Appropriate for wilderness, they can be treacherous to anyone not wearing shoes suitable to the terrain. Sun, too, can be a problem. Carry a gallon of drinking water per person per day. Jeff Kida photo Seconds later a full-grown mountain lion jumped over the hood of the cart in pursuit of its retreating rabbit dinner.

The City of Phoenix acquired South Mountain and the ranges north of Phoenix as the city grew. As years passed and developers dotted the mountainsides with homes, the fight to save the skyline shifted from peak to peak. Groups like the Phoenix Mountains Preservation Council and the Save Camelback Committee struggled to make the public aware of the problem, aided by Arizona Republic staffers like Ben Avery.

The three county preserves, Estrella, McDowell, and White Tanks, are developed just enough to make access safe for campers and hikers. But the city preserves experience much greater use because they are so much closer to the population center. Their very accessibility threatens their future as wilderness.

The preserve most targeted by developers is the North Mountain Park area. In 1983, Mayor Margaret Hance appointed a committee of community leaders headed by Avery to plan the future of the preserve. Avery's suggestions included trading parcels of land on the fringes of the preserve for critical areas within park boundaries still in private hands. He also pointed out the area should be protected: "You've got to be real judicious about how much development and where you put it." Avery admitted that certain concessions may have to be made to handle the crowds who use the parks. "The more people you have, the more controls you need. You're going to have to replace vegetation from time to time, and Squaw Peak Trail right now should be blacktoppedthat mountain is just wearing down."

Preservation of the parks continues to be a joint effort between Phoenix, Maricopa County, and state and federal agencies. But whatever facilities are yet to be built, whatever changes come to the surrounding city, the parks will be available to give city dwellers a taste of the unspoiled desert as it was-and is.Editor's note: The Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area embraces a number of other county parks not noted above. With pride, we add: Cave Creek, Usery Pass, Buckeye Hills, Lake Pleasant, and the Black Canyon Shooting Range.