Travel

Arizona's Mogollon Rim

To an approaching traveler, the Mogollon Rim seems to ooze up from the primal basements of the planet, to block out the lower third of the sky. As you draw closer, it asserts itself as sheer towers forming recesses, points, and promontories. Bare rock pokes through the forest in rainbows of warm hues. As often as not, soft white or menacing cobalt clouds decorate a firmament so clear and baby blue it breaks your heart. Time slows to the syncopated clopping of the hooves of a walking cow pony. This is ranching country, lumbering country, relaxing country, wave-through-the-windshield country, unlocked-door country.On this trip to the Rim, we're headed for Pine and Strawberry. From Payson, State Route 87 strikes a course northwest and soon tacks down and up the canyon of the East Fork of the Verde River.

Pine was settled in 1879 by disciples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormon influence remains much in evidence: a tidy church and community center rather typical of Western Mormon towns.

Today, descendants of founders share space with retirees, summer-home refugees, and spirited young people. Some two-dozen subdivisions tucked off among the pines and junipers bear names like Berry Hill, Eagle Glen, and Canyon Shadows.

Along the main street and by woodsy lanes with casual fence lines, Pine stitches together a loose scatter of antique shops, old farm homes, specialty stores, and service establishments. Here and there a stone or log hut dating to the pioneer days sits entrapped within a larger, more modern house. Following a wet spring, yardsbloom with another era's flowers: hollyhocks, asters, and daisies. When Pine stages its Northern Gila County Fair in September, exhibits vary from beef jerky to needlework, wild-grape jam, sunbonnets, bola ties, and Big Max pumpkins. The fair is but one of a dozen area festivals staged during the warmer months. The Pine/Strawberry Museum is located in the old school office building in Pine. The 10 display cases holding pioneer artifacts, handsome enough in their own right, are the more appreciated for having been locally made by Leroy Horton while seated in a wheelchair. Available here and at the chamber of commerce is the booklet, "A Walking History Trail of Pine and Strawberry."

Hideaway Hamlets BELOW THE MOGOLLON RIM PINE AND STRAWBERRY AWAIT

In common with the rest of the Rim country, Pine's climate challenges prediction. At 5,400 feet, Pine is no stranger to an occasional sleet storm.And one May day you could savor the chef's special in the Rim Cafe while a brisk snow shower slants past the windows. But some years, deep snowpacks persist atop the Rim while the first patch of squash and beans sprouts in Pine's backyard gardens.

Arizona's Mogollon Rim

"We can follow the seasons by what falls on our heads," says artist Bill Ahrendt. "And smells. You can close your eyes and still perceive the doings of Mother Nature. On a nice warm day when the sap is running, you can go up to one of those old ponderosa pines, put your arms around it, and bury your nose in one of those yellow streaks in the bark and inhale the most delicious fragrance of sugary butterscotch. Yes, butterscotch."

Ahrendt says the Rim's residents and visitors have an artistic streak: "We don't qualify as a colony, but there are enough enclaves of artists, artisans, and patrons to lend a measure of culture to our communities."To prove the point: annual arts and crafts events customarily bring together from 30 to 50 Rim country artists and artisans, their works running the gamut from classical egg-tempera painting To keen custom knife-making.

Of birds: an internationally known artist, Larry Toschick, who for 16 years painted wildlife at his home near Pine, counted 45 species of birds on his lot. Now for health reasons a desert dweller, Larry pines for Pine and its incredibly rich variety of species.

"The raptors are wonderful: Cooper's, sharp-shinned and sparrow hawks, as well as the common red-tailed. You'll see flocks of band-tail pigeons, choirs of several kinds of warblers together, and pairs of sandhill cranes. They are God's gifts."

Just southwest of Pine is one of the most spectacular spots in the state. It's the Tonto Natural Bridge.

What a surprise David Gowan got in 1877 while prospecting Pine Creek for precious metals. He didn't find his fortune, but he claimed discovery of the world's largest travertine arch. The site is now Tonto Natural Bridge State Park.

Stunning statistics: bridge height, 183 feet; tunnel width, 150 feet; tunnel length, 400 feet. Geologists say it took playful Pine Creek a million years to deposit and sculpt calcium carbonate into today's massive span. During frontier times, a five-acre dairy thrived on its top.

By some accounts, Gowan, a long-time saltwater sailor, initially explored the expansive caverns by swinging himself from side to side on ropes like a pendulum.

A relative of Gowan erected a 10-room lodge in 1927. It was once described architecturally as "Staunch American Utilitarian." But the place is homey and is being refurbished as the visitors center for Arizona's 27th state park.

The setting would be charming enough without the bridge. There are a hidden valley, spring, waterfall, Gowan's early 20th-century fruit trees, a swimming pool that pioneer Andrew Ogilvie built with a team of four horses pulling a scoop shovel.

The park is open every day, and there is an admission charge.

About two miles south of Pine on State Route 87 is an unpaved gravel track wending eastward. Its name: the Control Road (FR 64).

There, at the Control Road/State Route 87 intersection, sprawls an excellent hunting ground for fossils of shellfish and other denizens of the deep, evidence that these mile-high mounts once formed the bottom of a sea.

Rock hounds consider the Rim country to be a mineralogist's dream-come-true. Chert, quartz, and gem-quality geodes are plentiful. Just about any prospector or rock shop can put you onto a dig of handsome red jasper or agate.

The Control Road, constructed by the Forest Service to assist suppression of wildfire, is not designed for a fast pace. It bends through slopes bristling with cactus patches and spear-shaped succulents, ferns and forbs, through prime specimens of what botanists call the Transition Zone: that contour of climate neither arid nor alpine, a land of thrifty piñon pines and alligator juniper, of stubborn barberry bush and fine-leaf yucca, perennial bunchgrass and annual wildflowers, of gnarled manzanita and Emery oak. Along this road, numerous shaded nooks provide room for movable feasts.

Ever visible to the north is Milk Ranch Point, a six-square-mile mesa that would be a "sky island" were it not for a narrow spit connecting it to the Rim. Long ago it took its name from the dairy on its top.

The Control Road crosses numerous live and intermittent watercourses in its 10 miles before intercepting FR 199 south of the summer-home community of Washington Park.

You can push on eastward 14 miles to where the Control Road joins State Route 260 near Kohl's Ranch on Tonto Creek. Or you can take 199 south, a 13-mile loop back to Payson via the Houston Mesa Road, one of the loveliest drives of the Rim country.

FR 199 visits rustic homes with shaded yards, gardens by orchards, and stone walls encircling weathered barns. It also crosses the gushing East Verde three times over concrete fords.

About two miles down FR 199, a ridge falls away to present a grand panorama of the Mazatzal Wilderness filling the horizon. As the Indian chief said: "In the end, there is only the sky and the mountain."

Strawberry, the hamlet and valley, is three miles northwest of Pine. At 6,800 feet, Strawberry can feel like Maine. Strawberry measured six feet of snow on the level in December, 1967, and four feet in two days in February, 1986. But some winters snowfall is light.

Pride of Strawberry is The Schoolhouse. It's 1.6 miles west of State Route 87 on the Fossil Creek Road. To be fair to all, the site selected was in the exact center of Strawberry Valley. Built in 1885 of huge, squared pine logs, the structure is the oldest standing schoolhouse in Arizona. Today it is restored and equipped in original condition, testifying to the yearning for education on the raw frontier. Only one room, it was elegant for its time with paneled wainscotting and wallpaper. The Strawberry Schoolhouse is open and staffed for visitation during the summer season.

Within its gently sloping swales, Strawberry tends hobby farms and orchards, pens pet horses, and trades in real estate.

Out on the highway, little businesses like Lonnie's Enchanted Cottage cater to tourists. Breakfast at the Strawberry Lodge continues a tradition older than granite. Sportsman's Chalet across the street boasts the only elevator in town: a dumbwaiter

WHEN YOU GO

Lodges and cabin courts put up guests in Pine and Strawberry, and there are several smallto modest-size restaurants. Guided horseback trailride outfitters operate in the area during the warmer seasons.

For further information, contact: Pine-Strawberry Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 196, Pine, AZ 85544; (602) 476-3547.

Arizona Mining and Mineral Museum, 1502 W. Washington, Phoenix, AZ 85007; (602) 255-3791.

Arizona State Parks, and the Historic Preservation Office of Arizona State Parks, 800 W. Washington, Suite 415, Phoenix, AZ 85007; (602) 542-4174.

Trail information is available from: Tonto National Forest, 2324 E. McDowell Road, Phoenix, AZ 85006; (602) 225-5200.

Tonto National Forest, Payson Ranger District, 1009 E. Highway 260, Payson, AZ 85541; (602) 474-7900.

That lifts drinks to the pool players on the second floor. If trails were freeways, then the PineStrawberry area would make a worldclass interchange. Hiker's heaven. Options galore. At the Pine Trailhead at the south end of Pine take your pick from the Pine Canyon Trail, Donahue Trail, Oak Springs Trail, and, best known, the old Highline Trail. Hugging the base of the Rim from Pine to State Route 260 east of Christopher Creek, the Highline long served pioneers as both a transportation and commercial link across this rugged land. You can hike, horseback, or mountain bike the Highline's 51-mile entirety, camping along the way. Or, because roads cross it at convenient intervals, it can be divided into day hikes. Located at about 5,500 feet elevation, the Highline is a year-round trail only occasionally closed by snow.

(LEFT) Woods Canyon Lake is a favorite of trout fishermen. JEFF KIDA (ABOVE, RIGHT) Dottie Ferguson extolls the history of Strawberry's schoolhouse. WILLIAM E. BARCUS Vegetation along the lengthy route ranges from cactus and manzanita to piñon and juniper to ponderosa pine and fir. The trail crosses a number of perennial streams and offers spectacular views of the Rim above and the basins and ranges below. For backcountry explorers, perhaps the greater harm inflicted by the Dude Fire of 1990 was the charring of the very heart of its 51 miles along the base of the Rim's cliffs. The fire took out the 17-mile central section of trail from Dude

Arizona's Mogollon Rim

Creek to the Tonto Fish Hatchery. The Highline is still walkable end to end — and deer, elk, and other wildlife thrive on the new grasses — but that central section will take a century and more to regain its before-the-fire appearance. But if something less strenuous is your style, the unfailing thrill of Strawberry is driving the ascent/descent of State Route 87 between the Strawberry Lodge and the Rim. At the top, more than one traveler has likened the stunning panorama of Strawberry Valley to “standing on the edge of the Earth.”

Editor's Note:

The preceding article was excerpted from Arizona Highways latest full-color book, Arizona's Mogollon Rim by Don Dedera. The book contains information on Rim communities, road tours, camping, hiking, and fishing. It is a complete guidebook to fun and adventure on the Mogollon Rim. The 64-page softcover book costs $8.50 plus shipping and handling and can be obtained by calling toll-free 1 (800) 543-5432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.

Don Dedera, a former Arizona Highways editor, has had a home on the Rim for decades and knows the area as only an insider can.

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