Father Paul Gabor, S.J., the vice director of the Vatican Observatory Research Group, looks to the heavens outside the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) building. Gabor calls the observatory atop Mount Graham “a very standard scientific institution.” | Bill Hatcher
In Depth

For Heaven's Sake

Shortly after dawn, the sky swirled with the pink remnants of Hurricane Odile as Father Paul Gabor, S.J., and I headed east from Tucson along...
The Smith Ravine Trail offers hikers a moderate stroll through a forest of mixed conifers and hardwoods. | Laurence Parent
Hiking

Smith Ravine Trail

Edward Abbey had a lot to say. And much of what he said ended up in quotation marks. Here’s what he said about walking in his book The Journey Home...
Flanked at times by stone buttes, Klondyke Road begins northwest of Safford and passes through the ghost town of Klondyke. | Jeff Maltzman
Scenic Drives

Klondyke Road

In the 1890s, miners returning from Canada's Klondike Gold Rush set up shop in and around remote Aravaipa Canyon. They founded a town there and...
The Villalobos family enjoys the glow from a responsible campfire at Tusayan-Montane campground, near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. | Dawn Kish
Latest Feature

Love At First Site

Imagine most people who are headed for the Grand Canyon don't stop driving north on U.S. Highway 180 until they reach the South Rim and its...
A coyote in thick vegetation just south of Florence surveys its surroundings. | Eirini Pajak
Latest Feature

They're Wily, All Right

It seemed like the perfect strategy for hiking Sedona’s scenic trails while avoiding the crowds and parking hassles. I planned my visit for mid-...
Fog lingers over a stand of golden aspens in Lockett Meadow, in the San Francisco Peaks. | CLAIRE CURRAN

Golden Opportunities

Enter caption here A waterfall spills into Fossil Creek, flanked by fall foliage. THERESA ROSE DITSON NIKON D810, 1/10 SEC, F/13, ISO 160,...
In the United States, Arizona, with 29 bat species, is second only to Texas. Last year, the state cut that deficit by one when the endangered Mexican long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris nivalis, pictured here), a nectar-eating species, was officially confirmed in Southeastern Arizona. | JOSÉ MARTÍNEZ-FONSECA
Latest Feature

Coming In For A Landing

In the world of Arizona pollinators, there are the four “B’s”: the birds and the bees, and the butterflies and the bats. Pollinating birds...
Autumn Clothes the High Country appeared in the October 1957 issue of Arizona Highways. “Scene taken near the San Francisco Peaks in the early part of October in 1954,” wrote our editor. “Venturing off the main roads, one will sometimes find a spot where light and subject matter meets with the approval of a nature photographer.” 
Latest Feature

Winds in the Mountains

THERE ARE WINDS IN THE MOUNTAINS NOW, COLDER AND MORE brisk than those of summer, telling of the change in seasons. Autumn is here. The clouds above...