On my fourth morning, after I awoke to am immense silence, my first photography subject was the lone dry juniper you see below.

Then the dawn lit up the far mountains.  You can view a larger image these mountains at dawn in my previous blog, “Superstition Wilderness Dawn.”

A Lone Dry Juniper

This is a photograph of that juniper tree, dryer than most, being dead.  I take it to be a One-seed Juniper from the thick growth of branches and the strong rounded aspect of the crown.  I captured this photograph from a tripod mount using a Kodak DCS slr/c with a Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM lens.

I used the tripod to bracket this shot on the left and right for the following panorama.

The Spirit of Elisha Reavis

From this vantage you can see my route into Reavis Creek Canyon and Reavis Falls taken on the first afternoon of the expedition.  That first morning I loaded up 65 pounds of food, supplies and photography equipment and headed out from the Reavis Trailhead on the Reavis Ranch Trail.  This was one of the trailed used by Elisha Reavis to ride a favorite burro and a string of 8 to 15 burros loaded with vegetables he sold to various communities throughout central Arizona.  See my blogs “A Ride to Reavis Ranch” and “Apple Orchard in the Wilderness“for views of the paradise (as of the early 21st century) where Elisha Reavis, lived and prospered in the latter part of the 19th century where he lived his 70’s.

This his mountain valley, using a perennial creek, Reavis cultivated and irrigated about fifteen acres of land by himself with chickens, turkeys, hogs, burros, two horses and several dogs.   The horses, teamed together, pulled a shear plow, disc and leveler.  On April 9, 1896 Reavis was preparing of another trip to Mesa, to buy seed potatoes, and was found by a friend a month later on what is now the Reavis Ranch trail, to the south and west of his valley, near what is now called Grave Canyon were friends buried him.

Past the Dry Juniper and Down

102 years later, I headed up the Reavis Ranch Trail, over the ridge of Lime Mountain and past this dry juniper in the same spirit as Elisha Reavis if for a different purpose.

Reference

An excellent article on Elisha Reavis by Tom Kollenborn, author of “Lost Dutchman Gold” and “Circlestone”.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved