All-Terrain Travel

If you had to pick one region for Western travel, you’d aim straight for the Southwest—specifically Arizona and New Mexico—and California. Modeling whatever’s best about the West like a moon-eyed cowboy, these states feature it all: famously hard-bitten deserts and ancient adobes; mountains with mines in their bellies; historic trails and timeworn bluffs; “grand” canyons and ghost towns; the Pacific Ocean and the windswept reaches; and every part of it, from valley pueblos to the immutable peaks of the Rockies, speaks of the Old West, telling the story of pioneers traveling West.

The simple lives of those who dared to test the frontier—mountain men and miners, herdsmen and hunters, artists and artisans—left a glorious past marked by many enduring elements, not the least of them precious metals, namely gold and silver.

Geography dictated where trails were most feasible. Native Peoples knew it, and many unknowingly led newcomers to the land’s riches and—sometimes to the tribes’ demise—financial and societal sway for the white men. More often than not, it was territory and the prospect of glittery treasure that guided adventuresome entrepreneurs to and through Western wilderness to riches beyond their imagination.

Today, the West woos escapists in search of solitude with the depths of lush meadows or the heights of snow-covered peaks. For others, it beckons to the gregarious, who must satisfy a communal bent, finding the footsteps of a past that echoes the cowboy spirit and way of life.

For each there is the West’s sublime and sumptuous aura, still drawing and entreating travelers to stay and shrug off the modern, urban lifestyle in exchange for something that will outlast them: the land and lives of the American cowboy.

Arizona

By Bob Willis

NATIVE AMERICANS inhabited the land that’s Arizona many centuries before the white man arrived. Today, there is still a vast Native population here; Navajo, Hopi, Apache, Tohono O’odham, Hualapai, Havasupai and Kaibab Paiute among them, and huge reservations dot the state.

But the story of Phoenix and most of Arizona begins just after the Civil War. Some of the earliest explorers, prospectors, and early Western settlers discovered elaborate canals long since created, and abandoned, by the earlier Hohokam civilization and realized that the desert could be tamed, and people could exist here. They found that these early tribes had quite an agrarian society going, before mysteriously disappearing.

While Phoenix has grown considerably in the past century, the Old West endures unchangeable just 20 minutes from town.

CAVE CREEK AND CAREFREE
Within 20 minutes of Phoenix to the north lies Cave Creek, and on a weekend evening at either the Buffalo Chip or Harold’s Cave Creek Corral, the music is good and the Western food is authentic and plentiful, especially the Baby Back Ribs at Harold’s.

Occasionally you still will see horses tied up outside next to the Harleys and Hummers, and the Cave Creek folks are there in clean jeans with a distinct horsy aroma.

Cave Creek traces its beginnings back to the discovery of gold in the region. The neighboring Apaches didn’t care for the intrusion, so the government sent in U.S. Cavalry to protect the prospectors. When the claims played out, cattlemen came, and the hoofbeats of horses and cattle replaced those of picks against rock.

Today if you head north a few miles from Cave Creek, you can rent a horse for a trip into the high Sonoran desert of the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area and Tonto National Forest.

There’s but one motel in Cave Creek, the Tumblewood Hotel. Run by Gary and Jeri Rust, the Tumblewood boasts a nice updating of the original 1950s flavor of the place.
There’s a lot of the Old West still alive in Arizona, but after all, it was the last territory to become a state—the 48th—and in many places, it’s still more territory than state.

A HIGH TIME IN CROWN KING
If you want a taste of Arizona’s old-time high country, hop in your four-wheel drive and wend your way up U.S. Route 17, about 55 miles north of Phoenix, until you see the signs for Bumble Bee. Turn there.

After a mile or so, the paved road ends, and you’ll pass through the all-but-abandoned metropolis of Bumble Bee (all 4 or 5 little homes and an old school-house). About 10 or so miles down the road, you’ll encounter the first signs of life in the old mining town of Cleator. Cleator, too, consists of just 4 or 5 buildings and one commercial enterprise: a ramshackle old bar that may or not be open. When it is, its patrons are a colorful collection of prospectors, road warriors, and otherwise interesting folks.

After Cleator it’s time to begin the climb to Crown King, named for the “Crowned King” Mine discovered in the late 1870s. It’s about 20 miles to the top but would be more like 10 if it weren’t for the switchbacks.

Today, Crown King is a place for folks to congregate, pitch horseshoes, or just take a seat out front of one of the local establishments and watch passersby. Among other signs of life there is a general store-post office, a volunteer firehouse, one pretty nice eatery, a B and B, and a couple of rental cabins. Before you leave, take time to find and explore the old graveyard here. It’s worth it.

Oh, and a word of caution: Don’t get into a high stakes game of horseshoes with the locals in Crown King—unless, that is, you want to get skunked in about 10 minutes flat.

ALMOST A GHOST TOWN
Another favorite place for Arizonans and visitors alike was developed more below the earth than above. Some 40 miles due north, via U.S. Route 17 and State Highway 260, sits Jerome, about halfway up Mingus Mountain. If you cross over the top and have a fear of heights, close your eyes. Some of the highest stretches of the road are so narrow there’s no room left for guardrails.

After a downturn in the copper market in the late 1940s, Jerome’s mining industry ended and the 100 or so souls who remained started promoting the town’s history. In 1967 the federal government designated Jerome as a National Historic District. Today it’s a thriving fun community filled with restaurants, B and Bs, galleries, museums, and some real friendly shopkeepers. We always enjoy lunch and the view from the Haunted Hamburger.

DOWN MEXICO WAY
Way down south at the bottom of Arizona, almost a stone’s throw from Mexico, the Rancho De La Oso Guest Ranch in Sasabe is nearly in walking distance of Mexico. Tracing its heritage back to the late 1600s, this fertile valley was settled by the famous Spanish missionary Father Eusebio Francisco Kino. Kino and his followers built a mission outpost here, and its one remaining adobe building, originally a trading post in the early 18th century, is believed to be the oldest building in Arizona. The adobe cantina, The Rancho De La Osa—“Ranch of the She-Bear”—stands as one of the last remaining great haciendas in the Southwest.

And talk about historic. Pancho Villa fired shots at the hacienda during the Mexican Revolution, and you can hold a cannonball found embedded in the stucco walls here. After the revolution, long after Villa was gone, lots of other famous folks stayed here, including President Lyndon Johnson, Adlai Stevenson, Tom Mix, John Wayne, Joan Crawford, and Gone With The Wind author Margaret Mitchell. The accommodations are adobe, territorial style, and the 19 rooms are simple yet elegant.

Ranch De La Osa is remote and private, about an hour and 15 minutes southwest of Tucson on State Highway 286, yet everything you could want in a Western vacation is here. The food has been featured in Bon Appetit; the lodging in Architectural Digest. There are occasional informal Sunday “dude-eos” and, for qualified riders, the chance to round up resident Longhorns.

A TOWN TOO TOUGH TO DIE
If you enjoy retracing the footsteps of the West’s toughest outlaws and lawmen, then head southeast of Tucson to Tombstone, “The Town Too Tough to Die.” The town got its name because, as its prospector-founder, Ed Schieffelin, was told, “The only thing you will find out there will be your own tombstone.” But in the summer of 1877 he staked two silver claims in the San Pedro Valley: the Graveyard and Tombstone. The latter flourished, and in the 1880s it was the West’s most notorious boomtown.

Tombstone’s greatest notoriety originated less than a minute away at a place we know as OK Corral. Wyatt Earp and his brothers Virgil and Morgan had a longstanding dispute with some locals reputed to be rustlers. The feud finally came to a head when they all came face to face near the OK Corral. When the dust cleared, “Doc” Holliday and the three Earp brothers were all standing and their foes all lay fallen.

Tombstone still survives in its souvenir shops and restaurants fronted by boardwalks. The famed Crystal Palace Saloon is still there along with the Bird Cage Theatre, where you can count the bullet holes in the walls and ceiling. On the outskirts of town, take time to walk through Boot Hill Graveyard where roughly 250 of Tombstone’s more colorful characters seek their peace. Many of the epitaphs are quite interesting. This is one of the most famous:

HERE LIES LESTER MOORE
FOUR SHOTS FROM A .44
NO LES
NO MORE

Is there a best time to visit Arizona? To be honest there’s no bad time. During summer months the “snowbirds” are gone, and rates are at their lowest, though you probably won’t want to pick up a horseshoe in mid-afternoon. The baseball spring training period always attracts thousands of visitors, and don’t forget the fantastic Festival of the West in Scottsdale, scheduled for March 17 to 20, 2005.

For more information, call: (602) 996-4387, or go to www.festivalofthewest.com

For more travel information visit: http://www.adventureswest.com