PREHISTORIC INDIANS AND THE BIG BANG

IN THE HIGH PINALENOS A WORLD OF WILDLIFE AND WATERFALLS

"TOM, WAKE UP; YOU HAVE TO HEAR THIS." I stir and turn toward Annette Cordano, huddled nearby in her sleeping bag, while her hus-band, Marty, sits by the campfire, its coals still glowing. The night air is cold and calm. Under a full moon, tall pine, spruce, and fir trees cast long shadows across the meadow below our camp. "Listen," Annette says, "Marty's calling a spotted owl. Faintly, from far off in the deep forest along Ash Creek Canyon in the Pinaleno Mountains, an owl's call, hoo, hoo-hoo, hooo, drifts through the night. Then, from Marty comes a louder answering call. Blowing into his cupped hands, he produces a con-vincing imitation, hoo, hoo-hoo, hooo, hoo-hoo, hooo, and the owl answers, a little nearer this time.

Time passes. The owl calls; Marty responds. Moving silently through the trees, the owl gradually approaches. As it closes upon us, the character of its hooting becomes bel-ligerent. Another "owl" is trespassing on its territory, and it is angry. No other sounds in-tervene. The night belongs only to the two players in this auditory drama.

Marty's an expert at calling spotted-owls, having once spent a summer "hunting" them for the Forest Service. Fooled by our human mimic, the owl moves toward our camp, mixing its hooting with agitated sputter-ing. "Sometimes," Marty says, "I've had them actually swoop at my head with their talons open."

AWAITS BACKPACKERS

But tonight's owl is cautious. It settles into one of the firs encircling our camp. We direct flashlight beams at the upper boughs, but the owl stays hidden. Marty hoots again; the owl responds, but still we cannot see it. “Enough playing,” Marty says. “Time to let him get on with the business of hunting.” As I snuggle deep into my sleeping bag, the owl calls again, hoo, hoo-hoo, hooo. But this time no answering call comes. Early the next morning, I wander near our campsite in a small meadow that in the early 1900s brimmed with activity at the Mount Graham Sawmill. The mill site now lies in ruins, a victim of the elements and scavengers. Scattered across the mead-ow are bits of scrap metal, nuts and bolts, lengths of stout steel cable, wooden planks, timbers. Part of an old steam boiler rests on its side, uprooted from a concrete ped-estal. Stamped on its cast-iron base is “Ames Iron Works, Oswego, New York,” a long way from the top of this mountain. Inside the boiler, a pack rat has built a cozy nest of twigs and dried grasses. Strewn around, even in the fire pit at our camp, are bricks formed at the Howard Brick Company, St. Louis, Missouri. Machine parts - broken iron pipe, gear cogs, a large spool for winding cable, a smoke-stack from a steam-driven engine of some kindlie everywhere. Walking on with-out disturbing these aging artifacts, I re-alize that the workday here must have been bedlam with engines bellowing, parts clanking, gears grinding, men shouting, mules braying, and saws buzzing. Now, as the sun peeks over a ridge, the only sounds are natural. A Steller's jay scolds; a hairy woodpecker drums on a snag; Ash Creek babbles down the canyon through dense beds of skunk cabbage and d desert rhubarb. A hummingbird, attract-ed to my red bootlaces, whirls in for a clos-er look. Our camp sits on a shady knoll above the mill site. Downhill and behind the camp, a small tributary brook, our water source for the next few days, bubbles mer-rily toward Ash Creek. Robins, a black-headed grosbeak, hermit thrushes, a Townsend's solitaire, and other songbirds fill the woods with melody as we plan our day over breakfast. We hike down Ash Creek Canyon Trail, No. 307, to Oak Flat, three miles and 2,000 feet below. Glancing up through a clearing in the deep forest, I spot a pair of ravens dive-bombing a golden eagle. An Abert's squirrel moves stealthily along a spruce bough. Dozens of spiny lizards scur-ry among the rocks. A summer tanager flits into a thicket at streamside. A yellow-eyed Mexican junco scratches busily among last fall's dead leaves. Apache trout lie in ambush in the clear, deep pools of Ash Creek. And, in this moment, it is hard to imagine the din of a nearby logging camp.

(BELOW) Aspens and pines find a foothold on the rugged face of Mount Graham where Ash Creek carves its channel on the mountain's granite incline.

The terrain is very steep and Marty's car-rying a ton of camera gear, so we'll take it easy, stopping, observing, and photograph-ing along the way. We don't get far. Ash Creek is one of sev-eral year-round streams in the Pinaleno

IN THE HIGH PINALENOS

Mountains. Scarcely wider than most irrigation ditches, fast-running, cold, and clear, it is excellent habitat for native Apache trout, the Arizona state fish.

At the bottom of a small waterfall, we arrive at a deep pool where more than a dozen trout lurk. Holding against the current, they rise to snatch insects swept over the falls. Truly wild, Apache trout are small and feisty, most measuring six inches or less, but one "lunker," at least eight inches, spurs shouts of "Hey, look at this one."

On we go. It's spring in the mountains, and thimbleberry bushes and red osier dogwood bloom at streamside. Large Western tiger swallowtail butterflies, wings bright yellow tinged with black, drift up and down the canyon. Shooting stars, cardinal monkeyflower, wood violet, and deer vetch are just now flowering. Yarrow spiny lizards skitter across large granite boulders and dart for cover just ahead of Tyke, Marty and Annette's Jack Russell terrier.

We pass a sign pointing to Trail 307A, a horse detour around a patch of slickrock where the footing is too loose and slippery for pack stock, and soon we come to a spot where a thin line of water plunges down

WHEN YOU GO

To reach the Ash Creek Canyon Trailhead from Phoenix, drive east on U.S. Route 60 to Globe, southeast on U.S. 70 to Safford, south on U.S. 191 to the Swift Trail (State Route 386), and west 29 miles to the Columbine Information Center at the top of the mountain. From Tucson drive east on Interstate 10 to U.S. 191, and north to State Route 386. Temperatures in high country can change suddenly at any time of the year. Be prepared. Avoid hiking during summer thunderstorm activity when lightning is a danger. Treat all water, no matter how clear and inviting it appears. For more information; contact the Coronado National Forest's Safford Ranger District, (520) 428-4150.

Exposed slickrock into a chute that empties into a deep pool. "Do you think this is the waterfall we saw on the map?" I ask.

"No, I think that's farther down," answers Annette, map in hand.

Down we go. It's very steep going, and a troublesome knee reminds me of an essential I forgot to toss into my pickup: my walking stick, an invaluable "third leg" in rough terrain. Then, through a break in the trees, we spy Ash Creek Falls, a breathtaking cataract that plunges 200 feet in two separate drops. We want a closer look. But how?

Scouting a bit, we find a tough but promising route. We'll have to traverse a sheer loose slope then pick our way out to the very lip of a ledge, a terrific but vertiginous vantage point for viewing the falls. A half hour later we're there.

Four-legged Tyke arrives first, sprints to the ledge, and barks for the rest of us to catch up. Annette and I creep to the rim on our bellies and inch forward for a look. Far below, white-throated swifts soar along the canyon walls and across the face of falling water. Marty, not in the least spooked by high places, sets up camera and tripod right on the dizzying edge.

With a little shade from a stunted pine growing on the rimrock and a cool breeze flowing up the canyon to keep the bugs away, it's a great lunch spot, so we settle in, enjoying both a closeup of Ash Creek Falls and a distant view of Pima, Thatcher, and Safford in the Gila River Valley far below.

After lunch we scramble back up the loose slope and resume hiking, talking and laughing as usual. Suddenly, Marty, in the lead, stops in his tracks and motions for quiet. Twigs snap in the woods above the trail; a loose rock rolls downhill. The noise becomes louder, and all at once a black bear crashes out of the undergrowth in front of us, crosses the trail, splashes through the creek, and charges up the opposite bank, where we hear him gnashing his teeth somewhere up in the rocks. Fearless but quivering with excitement, Tyke tugs at his leash. He would give chase if he could. We wait. Nothing. So on we go.

Oak Flat is our destination, and I'm game for it, but my knee is not. Every steep downhill step is a killer. Urging Marty and Annette to continue without me, I reluctantly turn toward camp, wondering if I'll see the same bear on the way back.