Photograph by Nick Berezenko
Take the High Roads
WILDCAT CROSSING Bighorn sheep gather in a grassy meadow along Forest Road 24, part of the route to Wildcat Crossing. | Joel HazeltonWildlife-watching trips are great…
Photograph by John Burcham
The Grandmother of All Ponderosas
I call her the grandmother tree. She lives near the top of Mars Hill in Flagstaff, on a slope well away from established trails. Far bigger than any other ponderosa pine around, she is about 150 feet…
Photograph by Bill Hatcher
Great Big Trees
Standing just outside Saguaro National Park East, Nick Shipley and I take in the pale, jigsaw-puzzle trunks of sycamores towering all around us. Their graceful arms reach for the winter sky,…
Photograph by Joel Hazelton
A Walk in the Woods
Mature Frémont cottonwoods (Populus fremontii) line Southern Arizona’s San Pedro River beneath puffy clouds. Named for explorer John C. Frémont, these trees are a common…
Photograph by Tom Bean
The Insistence of Aspens
This morning, I walked through a grove of winter aspens. Bare branches offered no shimmering summer green, no quivering, iridescent autumn gold. But no season can remove the trees’ dark eyes. Framed…
White wild horse chasing a brown one, ready to bite. Photo by Jessica Finnie.
Student Photo Contest Winners
First Place REPRIMAND Jessica Finnie Second Place LIFE FINDS A WAY Arianna DuPont   Third Place EGRET…
Photograph by Jill Richards
Refresh Glass
Ray DelMuro will tell you he likes to make things. But he doesn’t really have to tell you. The chair made out of Patrón tequila bottles outside his office is proof enough. As a kid in Southern…
Photograph by Randy Prentice
Sonoita Creek State Natural Area
Anything is a shipwreck, if you let it. Last year, as my children stood in Eastern Oregon’s Burnt River, playing at pirates, they found wreckage in the pebbles and river rocks, in the twigs and…