Travel

BABOQUIVARI A Place Outside of Time

Below Baboquivari Peak, yucca and mesquite dot the grasslands (PREVIOUS PANEL, PAGES 38 AND 39) in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. (LEFT) The endangered masked bobwhite quail has been reestablished in its southern Arizona range. JAMES TALLON (BELOW) Grazing in the refuge is a herd of pronghorn antelope, including several fawns.

AFTER THREE PITCHES ON A ROPE UP ROCK faces, the bald knob of Baboquivari (Bob-oh-'key-vah-ree) Peak is finally under my feet. From the 7,730-foot summit, Altar Valley spreads out as a velvet carpet of grass and mesquite.

There is no time here; this is a place outside of time, the home of a god named l'itoi. A Tohono O'odham friend once told me he could not go to the peak and visit the god because he was not clean, not nearly clean enough for such an encounter. I did not ask him what he meant because this is the kind of ground that makes one wonder about the clutter and hubbub in one's own life.

On the map, it is much more ordinary, a valley called Altar lanced by 46 miles of paved State Route 286 with the hamlet of Three Points on the north end, and the hamlet of Sasabe on the south end. Three Points is only 22 miles west of Tucson on State 86, but once the car turns left and heads south, the miles cease to matter.

When the Work Projects Administration published its road guide to Arizona in 1940, no road in the valley was given, and Sasabe and Three Points did not exist on its maps.

Now a lot has changed except for the valley itself, a tapestry of desert, grasslands, and ranches, all basking under the jagged gaze of the Quinlans, the Sierritas, and the Baboquivaris.

And, of course, the steady eye of l'itoi, the Moses figure of the Tohono O'odham, a figure glimpsed by believers in 1881 near Tucson in the guise of a little old man. He was leading the game away from the newly completed Southern Pacific Railroad, driving the wildlife back into the safety of the desert and grasslands, into country much like Altar Valley is today.

In the past decade, jaguars, animals all but extinct in modern Arizona, are said to have been seen in the valley, coursing up from Mexico to reacquire what once was a part of their traditional country.

On the side of Baboquivari Peak is a small cave or cleft in the rock. l'itoi lives there and watches. It is a place very few go-I never have. My friend was right; you must be clean. And, of course, one can't treat other people's gods as curios. It is enough to know the peak towers over the valley and is sacred. This fact changes the feel of the land spreading out just past the two-lane asphalt road.

The general store/gas station at Three Points is always busy. Here the beer is cold and the shelves crowded with wreathes and votive candles for roadside shrines, flues for wood stoves, and bags of tepary beans, an indestructible desertadapted crop once grown by the O'odham. Next door, baskets are for sale, and the cassette racks host "chicken scratch" bands, a kind of polka music the O'odham learned from the Mexicans and then made their own.

Eighty years ago, this spot was called Robles Junction, a stage stop named after the ranch family who lived here.

William Hornaday, the great American naturalist, passed through here around 1910 on his way into the desert and noted, "Mr. Robles was at home and let us water our horses and burn up two campfires of his wood, all for the moderate price of 50 cents."

The place still has the feel of a jumping-off point. A mile or two to the west is Brawley Wash, a ribbon of dry sand that snakes along the highway halfway to Sasabe. Once, during the summer rains, I watched a flash flood roar down its bed, a full-grown mesquite tree bobbing behind the wall of water.

A few miles south of the junction, the feel of Tucson vanishes. Ranch gates begin to line the road, traffic disappears, and the land whispers, demanding attention from all who pass this way.

In the mid-19th century, a mining engineer named Raphael Pumpelly was lost in this valley. He'd arrived from Ohio to work silver and gold deposits, barely surviving Apache raids. And here in this immensity, he and his companions ran out of food and water.

One man from the party was dispatched to find supplies. "But when the

Continued from page 43 wends its way south to Sasabe. A wind ruffles the grass, and over there in a shallow depression, four antelope graze and barely look up. Waterfowl use the refuge; herds of javelina root about in the brush; mule and white-tailed deer move like shadows at dusk and first light, and, at times, a mountain lion passes through to harvest the slow and the infirm.

Alice Knagge's Hilltop Bar and general store in Sasabe is a good place to sort out the feel of the valley's enormity and silence. Alice has basically lived here all her life, and, up to 1978, when she sold out to a man from Sonora, owned the whole town not such a big deal since the total population was about 30.

The saloon is tucked away in the back of her store, a kind of time warp itself with more wreathes for shrines, kerosene-lantern parts, piles of saguaro ribs, wood stoves, and jalapeño wine with the volcanic pepper married to the grape. The 10-stool bar can hold a third of the town's citizens but usually the bleached cow skulls on the wall outnumber the customers. Alice gets by selling burnt-adobe bricks made in neighboring Sasabe, Sonora and the town's history. Which simply means, time doesn't mean much here:

WHEN YOU GO

"When did the town start?" she wonders, "1917? 1918? I'm not sure." She's only an hour's drive from Tucson, she points out, has the only hot tub in Sasabe, and, well, why would she ever leave?

That's a thought to kick around out at Rancho de la Osa, an ancient guest ranch just west of metropolitan Sasabe. The ranch is run by four generations of the Davis family. They say their dining room has been around for a century while the cantina is said to be 250 years old. Beer is served in glass cowboy boots, and outside await a pool, a volleyball court, and a remuda for equestrian pursuits.

For decades, Americans have come here to see hawks and desert, to ride horses, and to stare up at Baboquivari Peak and to forget telephones. But mainly, they've come to escape a sense of time. The sweep of grass is something that was here before recorded time and will be here after we're gone. Here you can drive down a dirt road and look over and see an antelope, an animal whose ancestry stretches back more than 30 million years, move across the land as if nothing has ever changed.

When the railroad finally penetrated the desert in the late 19th century, the O'odham recorded the event in song: "Yonder far I ran. Walked and ran.

Iron stretched out. Then I beside it ran. Nowhere did it end. It stretched out."

In the valley, all the obvious signs of civilization the power lines, neon signs, railroad tracks, gridlocked cities all this finally ends. Here hawks scream overhead, antelope drift across the land, and the stone skull of Baboquivari towers over everything. The primal life beneath our modern facade just keeps rocking gently along. And the masked bobwhite still calls.

Travel Guide: For detailed information about the great variety of places to travel in Arizona, we recommend the guidebooks Travel Arizona and Travel Arizona: The Back Roads. Both will direct you to exciting destinations and out-of-the-way attractions. Our Arizona Road Atlas, featuring maps of 27 cities, mileage charts, and points of interest, also is very useful for travelers. For information about these and other travel publications, or to place an order, telephone 1 (800) 543-5432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.

Getting there: From Tucson, drive 22 miles west on State Route 86 to Three Points (also called Robles Junction), and turn left on State Route 286 to enter Altar Valley. The weather here is best in the fall, winter, and spring (cool nights nights with warm days in the 60s and 70s). Sasabe, at 3,500 feet, can have crisp winter nights dipping into the 20s, so bring a coat.

Accommodations: The only place to stay is the Rancho de la Osa guest ranch, about a mile by dirt road out of Sasabe. Horseback riding is available, and there are a swimming pool and a volleyball court. Reservations recommended. For more information, write P.O. Box 1, Sasabe, AZ 85633; telephone (602) 823-4257; or toll-free 1-800-872-6240.

Other nearby attractions: The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge is open to the public dawn to dusk yearround. The refuge is home to a variety of wildlife, including the masked bobwhite quail once believed to be extinct antelope, deer, javelina, and waterfowl. No camping permitted. Headquarters open weekdays. For details on trails and regulations, contact Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, P.O. Box 109, Sasabe, AZ 85633; (602) 823-4251.