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Experience Red Rock Country's Canyon of Many Moods

Well before the time of the dinosaurs, almost 300 million years ago, a great sea washed across northern Arizona. Shallow, its waters periodically flooded the deltalike landscape at its shores, depositing deep layers of red hematite sands. Inland, vast windblown deserts arose and advanced, the white sands of their dunes inundating the lowlands at the water's margins. In a grand geologic dance of millions of years, this process would repeat, producing the layered sandstones and limestones of the Coconino Plateau.

Faulting in the sedimentary deposits allowed the action of relentless wind and water to divide and erode the land. Ancient watercourses cleaving the massive blocks of stone produced the towering spires, colorful peaks and precipitous canyon walls of Oak Creek and its quietly flowing tributary known as the West Fork. Visit the canyons of the West Fork of Oak Creek today and time falls away. Here you enter a place of shadows, where sunlight becomes magical as it pierces the canyon's thousand-foot depths. A place where alpenglow reflecting onthe creek's still water fills the chasm's darkness with the golden warmth of sunrise. Walk in hushed stillness where the huge rock forms above focus the silence on the gently flowing water at your feet.

The deep canyon creates complex microclimates. As the sun moves in its seasonal azimuth, light reaches some areas while others remain shaded. On one side of the canyon, the high desert chaparral of manzanita and silk-tassel bush may dominate while, nearby, ponderosa pines and Douglas firs hold purchase. Beyond, oak, piñon and juniper trees cluster not far from streamside thickets of elderberries and alders. In the fall, cottonwood and maple trees blaze in its depths.

Time and timelessness. Shadows and light. Serene quiet where gigantic rock forms collide. An ancient landscape where life is constantly renewed. In a place so grand, myriad small things. The West Fork of Oak Creek's contrasts create its ever-changing moods. Join us as we explore its tranquil inner reaches and soaring sandstone battlements.

WEST FORK OF OAK CREEK

Alcoves carved into the canyon walls by rushing floodwaters (preceding panel, pages 28 and 29) provide evidence of the quiet creek's tumultuous past. Photograph by Chuck Lawsen. Four miles upstream from the West Fork's confluence with Oak Creek (above), the rugged topography challenges the hardiest hiker. Photograph by Robert McDonald. Fall colors (right) reflect in the West Fork's placid waters. Photograph by Larry Lindahl. Maple leaves gather in a water-scoured narrows (left) where past floods have stranded a fallen forest giant. Photograph by Steve Gilb. An angular green yucca (above) contrasts with the frost-tinged fall color of creekside bracken ferns. Photograph by Paul Gill.