Down on the Blue

In the lap of mountains, a backcountry river sustains a handful of modern-day pioneers who thrive on making it the hard way...

bear, tender as a doe, she teaches her children to make do. To live strong...and free...and long. Sleeping under the snowpack of the Mogollon Rim in eastern Arizona, the Blue River country nurses from a thousand seeps and springs 9,000 feet high in great, seemingly endless forests of spruceand aspen and ponderosa pine. There is one way to get to Blue River country-down. From Luna Lake, east of Alpine, a narrow dirt road tags creeks and canyons down through zones of pine, piñon, juniper, scrub oak, mountain mahogany, and manzanita to the lively Campbell Blue, a tributary named for a Campbell piano (some say) that a rancher shipped in on a packmule for his lonely bride.

The road was improved by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. Not long afterward, Harold Whitmer of Alpine started carrying the mail to the Blue post office in a Model A Ford. When it stormed, he rode a saddle horse; a packhorse carried the mailbags. Ne'er-do-wells living in caves along the Blue would ask him to leave provisions behind certain rocks or logs; then they'd leave money for him to pick up on his return. Today Harold and his wife, Hessie, still deliver the mail, three times a week.

Where the Campbell Blue and Dry Blue meet, in the lap of the mountains just below a placid beaver dam, the Blue River begins. Long and lean, she runs roughshod through irrigated farms and graveled valleys strewn with the uprooted debris of floods. Checked now and then by box canyons, she slows but never stops until she reaches the San Francisco River. The road dead-ends halfway down the river. Here the history begins.

In the 1880s and '90s, the lure of water, grass, timber, and game attracted settlers to the mountains of eastern Arizona. Bill Casto came from Idaho in 1883 but was driven off by marauding Apaches. In 1888 he returned, settling at the head of the river. James Glenn Cosper and his two sons, Toles and John, came in 1884 and stayed to raise cattle and large families.

Historian Ione Marks writes of a Texan named Hugh McKeen who started an outfit with five mares and a work team, then traded one of his horses for the HU Barheadquarters on the lower Blue. Later he bought out an English operation, the LF Bar, in Bear Valley.

"He would ride hard all day, come in, and cook his dinner which, most of the time, was lunch and dinner combined. Then he would go out and cut trees down and build fences or do some farming until bedtime. In other words, he, like others who made their start on Blue River, made it the hard way."

Fred Fritz, Sr., established the Triple X Ranch north of Clifton in 1885 and moved cattle onto the Blue in 1886 and '87. Fritz was riding the range one day in 1898 when he discovered a grizzly bear feeding on a freshly killed cow. A shot from his .45 missed striking a vital spot, and the bear lunged at him. With four-inch claws the bear struck, mauling the man horribly. Fritz fired four more times, point blank, but the frenzied animal was unstoppable. Even Fritz's dogs could not distract the beast. Struggling for his life, Fritz tried to break loose from the powerful grip. In desperation he clubbed the bear with the butt of his pistol until it broke, then began stabbing the animal with a pocketknife. At the last moment, a relative happened upon the scene and swiftly shot the bear. Fritz was bedfast for three months and disabled for life.

A severe summer drought followed by blizzards in the winter of 1899-1900 devastated northern Arizona ranges. Ranchers from Springerville and St. Johns moved large herds of cattle into the upper Blue country. The resulting overgrazing destroyed much of the rootstock, so there was little left to hold the topsoil. With the Mona Downs Bunnell is well-versed in what it takes to keep a ranch running smoothly. In addition to her homemaking responsibilities, Mona berds cattle, mends fences, and trains horses.

loss of grass and brush, natural fires ceased to be an agent of forest ecology. To add to the problem, about 10,000 goats were brought into the lower Blue. By that time, woodcutters from the mining towns of Clifton and Morenci already had clearcut most of the piñon and juniper woodland for firewood.

When Black Mesa Forest Reserve was set aside by the federal government in 1904 to preserve the watershed, it was almost too late. Floods destroyed most of the farms along the Blue and San Francisco rivers in the winter of 1904-05. Topsoil, trees, and rocks washed down the steep grades, changing the country forever. "It was not until fires ceased and grazing began that abnormal erosion occurred," wrote a young forester named Aldo Leopold, later the founder of The Wilderness Society.

The beginning of forest management marked the start of a long-standing feud between the U.S. Forest Service and ranchers on the Blue. Foresters blamed erosion and flooding on overgrazing; ranchers pointed to timber cutting and fire suppression as causes.

With the new century came a new era. Suddenly gone were the wild free days when the cattlemen struggled to gain a foothold in this rugged country. Now there were rules and regulations to contend with. And ranchers resented it. But while men stewed and complained, life went on along the Blue, and eventually even ranchers and rangers found themselves raising a ruckus together at weekend dances and parties.

A ranger named George Harris, living at the Honeymoon ranger station in 1914, wrote his fiancee, Jean Cummings, that Toles Cosper had built a new house on the Blue and invited everyone within a 50-mile radius to a dance. Cosper had 10 children and was “one of the most hospitable men in the country,” Harris wrote, adding in chagrin that he was unable to attend the party because two men “stopped by my cabin on the way to the dance and left with all my clothes which they could wear.” But on New Year's Eve, bachelor Harris retaliated, clearing the ranger cabin and throwing a shindig of his own. He wrote his girl: By two o'clock they began to come....As each newcomer came, I hailed him, told him to throw off his saddle and turn his horse into the alfalfa field. At 3:55 the old fiddler found a place in the doorway and began squeaking out “The Preacher and the Bear.” With the help of three fellows in the kitchen we fed the whole bunch for supper, 31 in all, in three relays. They ate a whole ham, about a bushel of biscuits.... There were 11 girls and 22 fellows....and those girls scarcely missed a dance. How they did it is more than I can see.

Life on the Blue today is full and rich, much less harsh than yesterday. If you listen, you can hear the early morning rattle of an ash box, the crack of a juniper fire, the hiss of bacon in a cast-iron skillet, the scuff of boots on a board floor, the cry of a waking child....

Rose Coleman is Charles Coleman's wife, the mother of Duane and Leddy, and the grandmother of Quincy Lynn. She also is the granddaughter of Toles Cosper, and is a skilled and willing ranch hand.

She and her husband manage the Lazy YJ Ranch and own the place that belonged to her mother, Katharine Lee. “It's getting harder and harder to make a living raising cattle, with higher taxes and operating expenses and more Forest Service rules and regulations. But this is what we want,” she said last summer. “It's my life. I never knew anything else.” Ranchers on the Blue can't afford hired help; so Rose does whatever needs to be done-from branding, dehorning, and castrating to doctoring sick cattle and horses. She also can operate a sewing machine, cook for a roundup, load cattle and horses, drive a bobtail truck or farm tractor, shoe horses, throw a “diamond hitch” around a packsaddle, and pack 50pound blocks of salt into the high country. Not to brag, but she admits knowing most of their 400 head of cattle individually. When Rose was eight years old, she told her mother, “I don't want to be anything but a country girl.” “People ask if I get lonely or bored down here,” she said. “There's not enoughhours in the day to do all the things I have to do.” Since she doesn't have to drive her children 20 miles to meet the school bus anymore, “I don't go to town unless something breaks down or we run out of something.” What she likes best about the Blue is the way neighbors help each other. “People were really good about taking care of our place when Duane was in the hospital.” (When he was two years old, the child fell off a horse and fractured his skull.) “We had to stay in Phoenix with him a long time. And when our neighbor Stormy Luce was injured in a car accident,the helicopter couldn't find a place to land at night. All the people on the river drove to a hayfield and parked their cars in a ring so the helicopter could use their headlights.” Rose admits she has missed out on “some of the town things” and sometimes wishes she had gone to college before she got married, but the ranch has been a continual education. “My mother and father gave me a lot,” she said. “You don't learn about ranching out of a book. You learn while you're growing up.”Rose's mother, Katharine Lee, agrees: the learning process on a ranch never stops. "You may be 75 and learn something brand new," she said.

"Every day is different. If there's something you don't know how to do, you learn in a hurry. I've really enjoyed everything so much. Every time I look out the window, I think how thankful I am to live where I do."

Raised on a Wyoming ranch, Katharine came to the Blue in 1936 to visit her sister, Gertrude, who taught in the one-room schoolhouse. "I haven't left yet," she said. "I just like the country."

She married DeWitt Cosper, Rose's father. "When Rose was a baby, we'd put a pillow on the saddle horn and take her with us." (Rose later did the same with her children, Duane and Leddy.) "I wouldn't have thought of staying home. He needed me to gather cattle. We drove cattle to the railroad in McNary when Rose was small. It was a five-day drive over the mountain. Oh, I did look forward to the trails. Now, most of the people haul cattle in bobtails."

Summers were spent on their national forest allotment near Hannagan Meadow. "We put what we had on packmules. One summer the kids insisted on bringing their pet kittens and ducks; so we packed a burro with kittens on one side and ducks on the other. I sure liked camping on the summer range. When we were hungry, we would just go down to the river and catch fish for supper."

DeWitt Cosper died in 1954. When Rose was eight years old, Katharine married Clell Lee, a hunter and outfitter. Clell and Katharine ran the ranch and took hunting parties all over the Southwest. "I was the swamper," she said. "I'd stay at camp, cook, and wash dishes while the men were hunting."

When Clell died in 1981, after he and Katharine had been married 26 years, Katharine sold the ranch to Rose and Charles. For the past few years, she and other members of the Blue River chapter of Cowbelles (a national organization of women associated with the cattle industry) have been writing a history of their Blue River country. "I think we owe it to the ones who came before to leave a record of what they've done," she said.

For a long time, people on the Blue tried to get Mona Downs married to ensure a supply of students for Blue School, which at one point was down to two. When they finally gave up, she found herself a Blue River cowboy. Mona and Bill Bunnell were married January 9, 1987. Now they help work the ranch owned by her father and mother, Herschel and Ramona Downs.

Mona was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and came to the Blue when she was three days old. She has lived there ever since. In high school, she barrel-raced in rodeos, was active in sports and 4-H Club work, and thought about becoming a police officer, but four years boarding away from home was enough. "I really don't like town at all," she said.

On the Downs ranch, "the men do the big work and the women plan everything else around it." Mona has ridden horses ever since she can remember and done every job on a ranch from horseshoeing to bookkeeping, but her favorite chore is packing salt to the animals on the range. "I guess I'm kind of a loner," she said.

"I've always liked to ride by myself. I'll go out and take two packhorses. I don't worry about accidents. If I have a wreck, I'll have a wreck."

There are "wrecks" (mishaps on horse-back) aplenty on the Blue. "It's all up and down country," she said. "We have one mesa that takes about 20 minutes to ride up, and that's the only flat place we have on the ranch."

On their summer range, she can move cattle and fix fences at the same time she is training the horses. "We get horses green-broke [partially trained)," she said. "There are three things I won't do-break broncs, rope cattle, and run a chain saw."

The best part of ranching to Mona is the freedom to do things when she wants to do them. The worst part is riding up to find a bear tearing up a newborn calf. "You never get used to that," she said.

Jane and Don Hoffman put running water in their one-room cabin in 1981, the year their son, Karl, was born. Before that, they had to haul water from the river in 55-gallon drums. By the time Gretchen came along in 1983, they had hot running water.

In the early days, Jane got bored pumping water with her feet on the see-saw pump and learned to knit at the same time. She also has a fine arts degree and is a skilled weaver.

Karl and Gretchen were both born in a hospital in Springerville because Jane did not want to have a baby alone on the Blue. "When I knew it was time, we just drove up the mountain," she said. "I wasn't too worried because I had helped deliver a baby the year before."

The Hoffmans had let a family live in teepees in their back meadow for a few months that year. "The baby was born on Don's birthday in October. I'll never forget it. There was a full moon. A shaft of light from the moon came through the hole in the teepee and shone on the baby just as he was born. I caught him in my arms. They named him Freeborn."

Jane and Don are among the new pioneers on the Blue. They came in 1977 when Don was doing an inventory of the Blue Primitive Area for a U.S. Forest Service study. After hiking 200 miles of trails, photographing, mapping, studying flora and fauna, and locating prehistoric and historic sites, he decided to stay in the area. They feel lucky to have acquired their 10 acres when they did, for private land is scarce and rarely for sale and preserves enough food to last through the winter.

Their way of life depends on having good neighbors. “We do a lot of bartering,” she said. “We share tools and supplies, trade work for materials, and watch each other's place when we're gone.” Neighbors also get together for meals and games and can relax in a hot tub improvised from a galvanized steel stock trough in the backyard.

Like their neighbors, the Hoffmans are forever conscious of the usually benign Blue River that physically and mentally intersects their lands and their lives. The river's song speaks to them of freedom, of naturalness, and a wonderful closeness to wilderness now absent from the experience of most of us. But the old river also serves to remind them, at times harshly, of their human frailty in this wild land....

“We were standing beside the river,” Jane recalled, “when I looked up and saw this huge wall of water with tons of debris coming toward me. I didn't even hear it,” she said.

“We were unharmed, but it taught me to have respect for the Blue. You have to be humbled by the river.”

WHEN YOU GO.... Blue River Country

Getting there: Be prepared-take along a road map. “Down on the Blue” is how many Arizonans describe the Blue River country, for good reason: access is downhill. Most Arizona visitors take U.S. Route 666, the Coronado Trail, south from Springerville. The road climbs a thousand feet from the floor of the Round Valley grasslands to forests of spruce, fir, and ponderosa pine surrounding the village of Alpine. South of Alpine, the highway begins a slow, winding descent from the Mogollon Rim. At Beaverhead, Forest Service Road 567 (Red Hill Road) turns east, following drainages to Blue River Crossing. An alternate route is FS 281, which plunges south from Luna Lake. Since life on the Blue is governed by seasonal flooding, stop in Alpine for gasoline, supplies, and road information.

Where to stay: Alpine has two motels, two restaurants, a grocery store, self-service laundry, and service stations. Along the Coronado Trail, six campgrounds are available between Springerville and Clifton-Morenci.

What to see and do: Most of the land along the Blue is in national forest, and U.S. Forest Service regulations apply. There are two campgrounds on the river, Upper Blue and Blue Crossing. The Blue Primitive Area contains more than 200 miles of trails for experienced hikers and horsemen. Other areas nearby that provide wilderness experience are Mount Baldy Wilderness, with a 28-mile loop trail; Bear Wallow Trail, 6 miles; Escudilla National Recreation Trail and Govern-ment Trail to Escudilla Mountain, 7 miles; Eagle National Recreation Trail, 29 miles. Winter recreation opportunities include miles of cross-country ski trails in the Alpine and Greer areas and downhill skiing at Apache Sunrise Ski Resort on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation.

For more information: Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, Alpine Ranger District, Box 649, Alpine, AZ 85920; (602) 339-4384. Arizona Office of Tourism, 1480 E. Bethany Home Rd., Phoenix, AZ 85014; (602) 255-3618. White Mountain High Country Chamber of Commerce, 180 N. 9th St., Show Low, AZ 85533; (602) 537-2326.

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