The Muleshoe Ranch and Vicinity

THE MULESHOE RANCH

We're hiking through high desert chaparral, across a dry hill gone to prickly pear and a lowgrowing, vicious agave aptly named “shin dagger.” Where grass grows beneath the stickery catclaw shrubs, it bears tenacious yellow foxtails that grab our socks and work their way inside our shoes.

But when we reach the top of a rise, a cool, clean breeze sweetly combs our hair. To the north, the stern escarpment of the Galiuro Mountains rears above two emerald streambeds that flow to either side of a flaxen hill, tracing forested lines of cottonwood, willow, and mesquite bosques. To our right stand the Winchesters; to our left and in an arc behind us, blue and violet in the distance, rise the Santa Catalinas, the Rincons,and the Little Dragoons. The air rings with birdsong. In a great walnut tree down by the river, a pair of red hepatic tanagers chitter to each other. We have seen bright yellow orioles, goldfinches, shrikes, a horned lark, and more hummingbirds than we can count. Turkey vultures and ebony ravens ride the thermals, and, though we never spot one, we understand the rare zone-tailed hawk lives in these remote canyons.

We are exploring the Muleshoe Ranch, a 55,000-acre tract jointly managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and The Arizona Nature Conservancy. It is a place of sublime and secretive beauty, about 30 miles northwest of Willcox at the end of the rugged dirt track that starts as Airport Road.

"There to the left, that's Double-R Canyon," says our guide, Beth Woodin, a Nature Conservancy trustee. "The stream that comes down the right side of the hill is Bass Creek. You see those cliffs up there in the Galiuros?" In the local manner, she pronounces the name "ga-lu-ra," a thrice-corrupted version of the original name Salitre (meaning "nitrate"). "When it rains, the water blasts down these streambeds with explosive force. But let's go look at the fishes."

Chris Rousso, Arizona Highways' associate art director, and I follow her down into the wash where only a little water trickles during this unseasonably parched spring. The slumbering desert creek surfaces for a few hundred yards amid blooms of watercress and then sinks underground. Bass and Double-R canyons drain into Hot Springs Wash, which runs into the San Pedro River. Beth strides over the coarse pavement of river rocks, the smooth-scoured rubble disgorged from hills upstream. Now and again she has to pause while the unsteady city girls pick their way across the stones. I like Beth. She is on the high side of late youth, hypereducated, apt to identify javelina tracks in one breath and in the next allude to women who "come and go, talking of Michelangelo." Eight years ago, it turns out, she taught Chris art history at the University of Arizona. These days, she spends many hours volunteering at The Nature Conservancy office in Tucson, and her special love goes to the Muleshoe.

runs into the San Pedro River. Beth strides over the coarse pavement of river rocks, the smooth-scoured rubble disgorged from hills upstream. Now and again she has to pause while the unsteady city girls pick their way across the stones. I like Beth. She is on the high side of late youth, hypereducated, apt to identify javelina tracks in one breath and in the next allude to women who "come and go, talking of Michelangelo." Eight years ago, it turns out, she taught Chris art history at the University of Arizona. These days, she spends many hours volunteering at The Nature Conservancy office in Tucson, and her special love goes to the Muleshoe.

She points out a delicate plant with red trumpet-shaped blossoms custom-built for hummingbirds. "Penstemon. And there are more of those yellow monkey-flowers you noticed." A short way up Bass Canyon we come to a small jewel-like pool nestled under a granite overhang. "This far downstream and with the water so low, the fish may have been eaten by raccoons and birds," she worries. But no-when we look into the pond we see a swarm of them, ranging from minnow length to just under hand-size. The Muleshoe, which comprises the entire watershed of the upper Redfield Canyon complex, contains three of the eight perennial streams remaining in the Gila River drainage that contain only native fish. One, the Gila chub-an unprepossessing fellow with a greenish back and a large head-is a candidate for the federal threatened and endangered species list. We recognize some speckled dace by their pointed noses and freckled backsides.

flowers you noticed." A short way up Bass Canyon we come to a small jewel-like pool nestled under a granite overhang. "This far downstream and with the water so low, the fish may have been eaten by raccoons and birds," she worries. But no-when we look into the pond we see a swarm of them, ranging from minnow length to just under hand-size. The Muleshoe, which comprises the entire watershed of the upper Redfield Canyon complex, contains three of the eight perennial streams remaining in the Gila River drainage that contain only native fish. One, the Gila chub-an unprepossessing fellow with a greenish back and a large head-is a candidate for the federal threatened and endangered species list. We recognize some speckled dace by their pointed noses and freckled backsides.

GALIURO COUNTRY

The vicinity of the rugged Galiuros takes in scenic areas reaching far beyond the Muleshoe. The mountain watershed bursts into color as fall advances. To the northwest of Muleshoe is Rattlesnake Canyon (BELOW AND OPPOSITE) in the Coronado National Forest. At the confluence of Aravaipa and Virgus canyons (FOLLOWING PANEL, PAGES 24 AND 25), fallen sycamore leaves gild a boulder-lined pool. The Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness, about 70 miles north of Muleshoe beadquarters, is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. ALL. BY JACK W. DYKINGA

ARAVAIPA COUNTRY

"There should be Gila suckers in there, too," says Beth; but if so, they're hiding among the algae-covered rocks.

Muleshoe is home to several rare species and habitats. The Nature Conservancy's managers are present to keep track of a bromeliad called ball moss, mesquite bosques (once common but now fast disappearing), and miles of mixed broadleaf riparian forest. Gray, black, and zonetailed hawks live here, as well as desert bighorn sheep, black bears, and mountain lions. Although it was a working ranch from the 1920s to the '80s, the Muleshoe still embraces within its 86 square miles a cross section of Southwestern plant communities, from Sonoran desert scrub to montane forests of ponderosa pine and Arizona cypress.

The ranch, a patchwork of ownerships, represents an unusual cooperative agree-ment between two federal agencies and the private nonprofit Nature Conservancy. About 6,160 acres are patented land belonging to the Conservancy; the rest is BLM and Forest Service land and designated wilderness, accessible to hunters, fishermen, and campers via Jackson Cabin Road, a rugged four-wheel-drive trail that starts near the preserve headquarters. When the idea to protect the ranch was first formulated, the State of Arizona also owned some lease land here, but to simplify administration, the BLM arranged a swap, thereby obtaining the state's Muleshoe parcels.

ment between two federal agencies and the private nonprofit Nature Conservancy. About 6,160 acres are patented land belonging to the Conservancy; the rest is BLM and Forest Service land and designated wilderness, accessible to hunters, fishermen, and campers via Jackson Cabin Road, a rugged four-wheel-drive trail that starts near the preserve headquarters. When the idea to protect the ranch was first formulated, the State of Arizona also owned some lease land here, but to simplify administration, the BLM arranged a swap, thereby obtaining the state's Muleshoe parcels.

Back at ranch headquarters, we meet Mark Heitlinger, director of stewardship for The Arizona Nature Conservancy, and Rick Young, director of management and monitoring from the Conservancy's San Francisco regional office. Mark explains that the three agencies operate the Muleshoe in a relatively new arrangement called a Cooperative Management Agreement (CMA). "There are others," he says, "but I don't think many that are more than a year or two old are as comprehensive in their implications as Muleshoe. There's no place where we can turn and say, 'Hey, they did it there, let's do it like that,' or 'Let's do it better than they did. '""Every CMA that The Nature Conservancy has entered into in the western region is something of an experiment," adds Rick. In practical terms, the arrangement places Nature Conservancy personnel in 24-hour-a-day charge of the headquarters on the Conservancy's private land, while BLM and Forest Service people cooperate in making management decisions and planning for the preserve's future. Many decisions remain to be made.

For example, will controlled burns be used as a management tool? Where, and to what extent? Which agencies will be responsible for fencing and other range maintenance? Will the Muleshoe be designated an "area of critical environmental concern," eligible for certain funding and protection?The ranch headquarters sit on the side of a hill that seeps hot water like a saturated sponge. Dave and Ann Zweig, the Muleshoe's temporary caretakers, tell us they have found seven separate geothermal springs, clear enough of minerals to supply the ranch's drinking water. Indeed, so much water leaks from the ground that volunteers from Luke Air Force Base recently had to install special drains to channel it away from building foundations.

In 1875 Dr. Glendy King settled onto what is now the Muleshoe, establishing a ranch and a primitive health resort. Nine years later, he was killed in a boundary dispute with neighbors Melvin Jones and Ed Drew, who had established a homestead in Bass Canyon. Put up for auction, the Muleshoe was purchased by Col. Henry Clay Hooker and added to his large Sierra Bonita holdings. "Hooker's Hot Springs" attracted visitors from all over the country, including playwright Augustus Thomas, who was inspired to write an 1889 Broadway play called Arizona, later made into a John Wayne potboiler, 'Neath Arizona Skies.

The ranch's 20th century history especially fascinates Beth. In 1906, she says, it was bought by Deming Isaacson who, with his son Baine, ran it until the late 1920s. Then drought forced them to sell it to a woman who had come west from Chicago, Jessica McMurray.

Mrs. McMurray, a divorcee who traveled alone, must have had a powerful personality. She commanded such respect from southern Arizona vaqueros that they called her La Leonera. In a Tucson sanatorium where she landed after developing a respiratory ailment, she befriended Nanine Patterson, a widow, and together they moved to the Muleshoe.

"One summer, Mrs. McMurray went to Europe," says Beth. "Mrs. Patterson asked her, 'Would it be all right if I built a cottage for myself while you're away?' "

"Mrs. McMurray agreed. But when she came back, she drove up to find an enormous villa installed beside an existing hot spring swimming pool. That cooled the friendship, right there."

Mrs. Patterson stayed a while but finally left, having been given a few acres in Bass

WHEN YOU GO...

Canyon. She moved to Tucson and died in the mid-1950s. Mrs. McMurray, according to her nephew, Chalkley J. Hambleton, stayed to the end of her days at the Muleshoe, where she died in 1950. Her ashes are scattered over the hill she could see from her living room window.

The ranch passed in succession to partners Jake Kittle and Lyman Tenney, then to Ernest Browning, to Alvin Browning, to Tucson conservationist Richard Wilson, and finally to The Nature Conservancy. Volunteer Louise Robbins is gathering these and other facts into a history of the ranch.

Mrs. Patterson's villa, now in a sad state of disrepair, still stands, and Conservancy caretakers are debating its future.

Volunteer Ginger Harmon, assisted by caretaker Howard Tinker, raised money and spent months renovating the other buildings at the headquarters: a quaint stone cabin built for Mrs. McMurray's sister, Ethel Wakem, a guest house, and two surviving wings of a three-part main house originally built by Glendy King. Two of the adobe sections burned when Alvin Browning owned it; he replaced one with a brick structure. Of another, onto which Mrs. McMurray had added a frame living room, only three slowly dissolving mud-and-straw walls remain. The third section has been lovingly restored, its thick walls replastered and painted, fine hand-wrought woodwork installed, and the bathrooms redone in Mexican tile.

We bed down in this place, and early the next morning Beth has us out in the field again. We hike up Hot Springs Wash, past mesquite bosques, yellow-flowered elderberries, and a hackberry forest. Big crested pricklepoppies are in bloom-the flower is called "the cowboy's fried egg" for its large white tissue-paper petals and yellow center. Blossoming too are scarlet and orange skyrockets, brilliant mauve sand-verbena, ocotillo, and yellow and magenta cacti. In the sandy river bottom, we find a single brilliant yellow and orange desert goldpoppy in full bloom.

A pair of huge, fuzzy black-and-gold bees, each about two inches long, come to rest on some big purple thistles. Chris grabs her camera, but before she can get them in focus, they bumble off.

"Up there, those cliffs below that raven," Beth points skyward. "Last year a black hawk lived there." The raven rests on his outspread wings, kiting.

"Wouldn't you like to just sit in the air like that, and look down on this whole place?" I ask.

"Oh, yes," she says. "I certainly would."

Admission: Public lands beyond The Nature Conservancy headquarters are open at all times and accessible via Jackson Cabin Road. Roadside signs mark Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service property. A four-wheel-drive vehicle is required. The Nature Conservancy requests that those who wish to visit the organization's private property register at ranch headquarters, open 7:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.

Getting there: The preserve is about 110 miles east of Tucson and 30 miles northwest of Willcox. From Interstate Route 10 take exit 336 west of Willcox; continue along the frontage road, which turns north. At the intersection with Airport Road (first stop sign), turn left (west). Drive about 15 miles on this gravel road to a junction that has several ranch signs and there turn right. Continue approximately 14 miles to the Muleshoe parking area, across a wash from headquarters.

Caution: Several deep washes may pose problems for low-clearance vehicles. After a rain the road is impassable even to four-wheel-drive vehicles.

What to see and do: Tucked away in the Galiuro Mountains, the Muleshoe's 86 square miles encompass portions of Sycamore, Swamp Spring, Cherry Spring, Redfield, Hot Springs, Bass, and Double-R canyons. Three perennial streams, lush riparian forests, and rugged canyons support a cross section of Southwestern plant communities from Sonoran desert scrub to mountain forests of ponderosa pine and Arizona cypress. Bighorn sheep, black bears, and mountain lions roam the remote backcountry, and five species of native fish exist in the stream pools. About 150 types of birds frequent the preserve.

Accommodations: No overnight facilities exist at the preserve. Overnight camping is not allowed on the private lands in the vicinity of headquarters or Bass Canyon, but is permitted on public lands beyond the headquarters area. Restaurants, motels, and service stations are available in the nearby community of Willcox.

Recommended reading: Travel Arizona and Outdoors in Arizona, A Guide to Camping, published by Arizona Highways Books, 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85009; telephone (602) 258-6641.

For more information: Muleshoe Ranch Preserve caretaker: Rural Route 1, Box 1542, Willcox, AZ 85643. The Nature Conservancy: 300 E. University Blvd., Tucson, AZ 85705; telephone (602) 622-3861. Willcox Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture: 1500 N. Circle I Road, Willcox, AZ 85643; telephone (602) 384-2272. Bureau of Land Management: Safford District Office, 425 E. Forest St., Safford, AZ 85546; (602) 428-4040. U.S. Forest Service: Coronado National Forest, Safford Ranger District, Post Office Building, Safford, AZ 85546; (602) 428-4150.