A Sand Country Sampler

MOHAWK DUNES Our Legacy of Sand Remains a World Apart

The tarantula hawk skips past, cours-ing over the gentle faintly green hills. The afternoon light is soft with high clouds drifting against the sun. At my feet, every square inch of soil is covered with tracks. It is as if I were standing in a major shop-ping mall. Behind me a mile or two, snakes the four-lane Interstate 8, and before me, lung-ing 40 miles south, stretches the something we choose to call nothing, ground where none of our kind lives. This is the blank on our maps, that vast congery of military ranges, the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

I am visiting an outrider of this heavily populated natural solitude, a place called the Mohawk Dunes.

When we first come to Arizona, we are usually surprised to find that the whole state is not one giant sand dune. And when we finally visit the dunes we are again surprised to find they are frequently carpeted with plants. These largely vegetated sand hills stretch for 20 miles to the south, lapping against the face of the Mohawk Mountains.

These sand hills are the landscape we are drawn to and yet dread, the ground where the earth moves and whips against our face. We have come to appreciate such places late in our history, and we are just begin-ning to consider the dunes as a part of our natural legacy. Our records have made little mention of them. The sand country is al-ways glimpsed out of the corner of our eye.

Text by Charles Bowden

Lieutenant Michler is that ancestor we all too easily mock, the insensitive Neanderthal in our family tree. This is not a true assessment of the soldier, of course. He was an educated man who faced this desert before we were born and made the best sense of it he could. When he trudged along almost a century and a half ago, he was part of how we came into this country.

Photographs by Jerry Sieve

Ground that moves makes us ill at ease. We flee the volcano, fear the earthquake, and sense some strange lack of security in the dunes. The water will not gather here but disappears into the hungry sands. The shifting hills march endlessly toward some destination we cannot fathom. And the plants cling like shipwrecked survivors on some fragile raft in this ocean of sand.

Our language reflects a prejudice; we favor "rock hard" certainty; upon this rock we build our faith; our deepest values are referred to as bedrock. Yet the dunes attract us in ways we can barely express.

The land forms are rounded and curved and voluptuous, the knolls and crests are often barren and pure. In the moonlight, this landscape bewitches our eyes and seems to beckon, and some part of us always wishes to lie down among the soft folds and dream that dreamless sleep.

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But we seldom do this, and we seldom cross these places. They are too distant from our notions of the solid and secure, too treacherous in footing for our animals, too combative even for almost all of our machines. The dunes remain a world apart from us, one we stare at, or nibble at the edges of, or in the hours of daylight briefly penetrate on iron stallions with massive tires. But we do not settle here or ever feel settled during our visits.

A friend of mine, a mountain climber, once decided to sleep a night in some dunes. So he parked his truck, swung on his pack, and walked in until he found that perfect spot. He left in the middle of the night. He could never explain his hasty exit to me except that he had felt an overwhelming sensation of fear as he lay out there on the perfect sand under the perfect stars without a tree or shrub in sight.

History has barely brushed against the Mohawk Dunes. The emigrants and explorers and Native Americans coursed around the rolling sands but seldom bothered to slog through the waiting hills. And so this 20-mile-long community of sand and plants and animals has been a quiet island around which the storms of our history have tossed.

From there we went between a wide gap straight to Kuswo Topi Do'ag (Twist Neck Mountain-Mohawk Mountains) straight where the road climbs a mountain. We stopped going when my cousin Luis was dragged and killed by a horse. His hand was caught in the horse's tail. When the Anglos found the man, they cut the horse's tail with his hand still caught in it. We never went back after we got out of prison.

I look down and see a track in the dust. The outline is of a split hoof, and I think of what the Mexicans call a berrendo. For most of us, the marking on the ground may

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Have been made by a Sonoran pronghorn, a subspecies of antelope and one of the more endangered animals on this planet. On the American side of this desert, there may be 100 or 150 of these creatures and in Mexico, possibly, a like number. They are difficult to count because they live where we do not live, and they go where we fear to go. For decades we were not even sure if they ever drank water (they do), and we still marvel at their ability to move freely through a country that lacks even one living stream. Years ago I participated in an aerial survey that radio collared a few of them. Until the downed animals shrieked, no one was even certain that they were not mutes. Part of the Earth claimed by them is these dunes, this 20-mile-long sea of sand slumbering almost unnoticed by the interstate.

The point of the antelope is much like the point of a dune. They are almost invisible to our lives and concerns, largely mute in the loud talk of our times, and yet strangely haunting, a ghost wandering the margins of our world. At first glance, I see nothing but the Mohawk Mountains, brown slabs of rock with a rose undertone. Green veins race up the sides of the peaks, and then I discover squads of ocotillo in leaf, topped with red flowers that are the blood of these green veins. In the arroyos spilling off these stone towers are clusters of blue paloverdes. On this spring day, they are solid with yellow flowers. I look back down at my feet, and then I kneel and begin to notice. Almost all human beings who come to the dunes eventually enter the world of rodent holes, sand verbena with pink flowers, beetles forging new highways on the

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soft sand, evening primroses barely two inches high, poised to unfurl white flowers when night comes. The trees, the living things larger than ourselves, are almost completely absent from the dunes. This is the world of the miniature, a place to fall on one's knees and join the scale and throb of things. Once, years ago on a hot June night, I was walking north on the west flank of the Mohawk Valley. The moon was out, and the stone ribs of the Copper range glowed faintly to my left. Across the huge flat pan of the valley, I could glimpse the Mohawk Dunes, pure, calm, self-contained, and glimmering with a white light 15 miles or more away. I was certain I could reach out with my hand and brush against those marching hills of sand it was a night of that kind of clarity or possibly that kind of fantasy. But what I keenly remember is the distance dunes tend to be that thing over there, that zone of the Earth we look at but do not go into. They are for us the place of magic, the ground with brooding powers. They lack that focal point the massive peak, the deep canyon - to anchor us. We tend to taste their edges and always wonder about their heart, their center.

But what I keenly remember is the distance dunes tend to be that thing over there, that zone of the Earth we look at but do not go into. They are for us the place of magic, the ground with brooding powers. They lack that focal point the massive peak, the deep canyon - to anchor us. We tend to taste their edges and always wonder about their heart, their center.

When in dire need of meat they would go to this rock and sit down. But first they would ask Eti for one of his old rams that he had no more use for. So they would leave an arrow in a cave and go sit down on this rock and wait. Pretty soon there would appear an old mountain sheep. So they would wait until he got up real close and then shoot him. The sheep would not run away as he came for that purpose. This was all done with bow and arrow.

The light is beginning to fail now. Jackrabbits seem everywhere as they bound about on their strange errands. Overhead, nighthawks sweep and turn as they snatch insects from the air. The dunes almost seem to purr: beetles scurrying, ants searching for something on the limbs of the creosote, the faint whisper of moving sand. A rabbit darts past, and then less than a second behind it is a coyote in pursuit. I look down again at the track in the sand, the split hoof an antelope? I will leave now and return to a place of history, time, solid structure. The dunes are for a visit so thatwe can remember what we sometimes forget: that the Earth is always really moving beneath our feet.

During the night we were traveling by the bright light of the full moon, when, looking south, I saw a black wall rising like a mountain of darkness, and rapidly hiding the sky as it moved steadily toward us. In a few minutes we were in intense obscurity, and in the heart of a sand storm Dismounting we held the terrified animals by the lassos, and sat down with our backs to the wind. We had repeatedly to rise to prevent being buried altogether by the deluge of sand.

Additional Reading: For those who want to know more about Arizona's deserts, we recommend The Sonoran Desert: Arizona, California, Mexico by Charles Bowden and Jack Dykinga. The 168-page hardcover book ($49.50, plus shipping and handling) is filled with Bowden's insightful essays and Dykinga's provocative photographs of one of the world's great deserts. To order, call Arizona Highways toll-free at 1 (800) 5435432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.

WHEN YOU GO

The Mohawk Dunes are best visited by taking Interstate 8 to the Tacna exit (about 40 miles east of Yuma). Turn south and take the dirt road that heads east at the very base of the off-ramp on the south side. The road will parallel the interstate and snake through fields of jojoba, a native desert plant grown for its extremely fine lubricating oil. After about 15 miles, the road will touch the northern edge of the dunes. Park and explore, but take note: a few hundred yards south you will find the boundary of the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range where signs instruct you not to enter. Obey them. Most of the dunes are within the military range. If you want to explore farther, it is necessary to obtain clearance from the Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma. The quickest way to get clearance is to stop by the air station, which is on Avenue 3E, about three miles south of Interstate 8. Or you can contact Range Management Department, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Box 99220, Yuma, AZ 85369; (602) 341-3318. (Allow two weeks to receive the clearance through the mail.) The range is subject to closure to the public, but generally is open 350-plus days a year.

hoto Adventures Focusing on Missions and Ghost Towns

There he was, sitting on a stoop outside a rickety saloon in southern Arizona's outback, resting after an all-day hike and taking a swig of a cool drink on a darn hot day. Next thing he knew, Pete Mortimer was scrambling to get out of the way of a snorting, dust-raising herd of Brahma bulls, steered by half a dozen leather-faced cowpokes. Then there was the time that Mortimer got chased out of Ruby, Arizona, by a bunch of grizzly men totin' six-shooters. It turned out they were mining gold near Ruby, a jewel of a ghost town near the state's southern border, and they didn't want to share any of it. Not even with Pete. No matter the trouble, it was worth it to J. Peter Mortimer. He's a noted photographer for Arizona Highways and some of his choice photographic sites are in southern Arizona.

Mortimer, also a former picture editor for the magazine, will share what he loves most about southern Arizona and what he knows best about professional photography during a four-day southern Arizona Photo Workshop, February 9 through 12.

The traveling workshop Missions and Ghost Towns will be a blend of miner spirits and missionary spirituality. Photography sites along the way will include San Xavier Mission, Tumacacori Mission, Ruby, and Arivaca. Other featured locations will be Saguaro National Monument, Sabino Canyon, La Roca Restaurant in Mexico, Sycamore Canyon, Patagonia, and Sonoita.

In-the-field photography including field development of color work will focus on ghost towns, missions, sunsets, sunrises, and hiking sites. Following are more trips.

PHOTO WORKSHOPS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS

Grand Canyon, North Rim; (cross-country skiing and snowmobiling); January 13-18; Edward McCain.

Monument Valley/Canyon de Chelly; January 26-30; Jerry Sieve.

Sonoran Desert in Bloom; March 23-26; Randy Prentice.

Baseball Spring Training; March 24-26; Jeff Kida.

Superstitions on Horseback; April 13-16; Gary Johnson.

Monument Valley; April 20-23; Tom Till.

WHEN YOU GO

Photo Workshops, sponsored by the Friends of Arizona Highways, provide amateur photographers with tips and hands-on experience to help them take pictures like those that appear in the magazine. Our premier photographers lead the workshops and are assisted by experts from Nikon, Hasselblad, Fuji, and Image Craft. Scenic Tours also are available.

For information on these and other tours, telephone the Friends' Travel Office, (602) 271-5904.

FRIENDS SCENIC TOURS

Keet Seel and Betatakin; June 2-5.

White Mountains by Horseback; August 15-19.

White Mountains Fly Fishing; September 29-October 2.

SCENIC TOURS WITH RAY MANLEY

(These trips are organized primarily for mature adults.) Arizona Grand Tour; April 19-27.

Monument Valley/Canyon de Chelly; May 5-9 and October 27-31.

1993 A Year to Remember...

Picture this impressive bound volume containing all the beautiful 1993 issues of Arizona Highways gracing your coffee table or bookshelf. The hardbound leatherette finish with an embossed desert scene makes a classic statement about Arizona and an unforgettable gift. This special collection of Arizona Highways is just $30.00 plus shipping and handling.

Or you can protect the individual issues of Arizona Highways you've saved throughout the year in these attractive magazine binders. Select either a brown leather-look cover or a tan cover highlighted with colorful Indian symbols for just $11.00 each plus shipping and handling.

You can personalize the covers of your bound volumes and magazine binders for just $3.50. (Print the desired name up to 30 letters on the order card in the description column.) Order through the attached card or write or visit Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85009. Or call toll-free nationwide 1-800-543-5432. In the Phoenix area, call 258-1000.