canyon – Michael Stephen Wills Photography

Reavis Canyon Camp

below the Falls

May 18, 2023May 16, 2023 MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

Here is an overview of my route through Cedar Basin on the way to Reavis Falls. There are two paths in the following image from Google Earth. The red path brings you into Cedar Basin and straight up a ridge and down to the campsite. The red path is incorrect in the approach to the ridge and, rather than repaint the path, I created the green path as the gradual and accurate description of how I climbed to the ridge point where I captured the photographs Hoodoos on the Descent to Reavis Falls.

No Path to Reavis Falls

You need to understand there is NO path through this terrain. It is necessary to follow a faint trail marked out by the footsteps of those before you and an occasional rock cairn placed at the most difficult points. The following image is misleading in that what looks like a road next to my green path is actually a creek bed from the Lime Mountain spring.

Huge Boulders

What looks like a road is the resting place of huge boulders fallen from the surrounding mountains. Since there is water, thick brush and trees grow everywhere in cracks and spaces between the boulders and rocks. Getting through the creek bed with an 80 pound pack and not getting lost is close to impossible. The solution is to hug the ridge slope, following the contours and navigate around boulders.

Reavis Canyon below the falls is filled with boulders of this size held in place by friction.

View of Reavis Canyon and Campsite

From the ridge small portions of Reavis Canyon were visible. I even spotted a campsite.

The mouth of Reavis Canyon below the falls opens into a sandy bottom. This camp, surronded by house-size boulders fallen from the slopes above, has a patch of grass bright green and fresh.

This camp, 1,636 feet below Lime Mountain peak, surrounded by house-size boulders fallen from the slopes above, has a patch of grass bright green and fresh to the right. In the center of the photograph is a tree trunk on rocks to serve as a bench next to a fireplace. With an 80 pound pack on my back, I was still an hour or so away from this spot. It was March, so sunset was around 6 pm, enough time to find a way down before darkness to overtook me.

Looking down from a ridge above the canyon that holds Reavis Creek and the falls.

This is an overview of my progress, with the Lime Mountain and Reavis Canyon campsites marked. Landforms are marked on the left: the Prominent Cliff , in the background it says “White Formation on Cliff.”

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Cedar Basin Hoodoos

Hoodoos and Young Saguaros

May 17, 2023May 18, 2023 MichaelStephenWills7 Comments

In my previous posting “Hoodoos on the Descent to Reavis Falls” I describe how I came to find these strange rock formations during a solo expedition to Reavis Falls in the remote eastern Superstition Wilderness.

Here I present several photographs captured from my tripod mounted Kodak DCS pro slr/c and a Canon EF 200 mm f2.8 L telephoto lens. These provide a better understanding of the strange, wonderful and possibly frightening impressions these formations make when discovered in a deserted location such as Cedar Basin.

Here is the highest point of the ridge….

…..and from a portion of the ridge that projects closer to my observation point above the canyon mouth of Reavis Falls. The numerous green poles are young Saguaro cactus. In the distance are mature Saguaros with lateral arms.

..and even closer than this were the rocks standing around me. This specimen I captured with the 50 mm 1.4 Canon lens. I believe it is a different rock type than the above, rounded, hoodoos. Those look like rock from ash of a volcanic eruption. This rock seems to be igneous, formed deep inside the earth.

My next posting will describe the surroundings of the campsite from which I explored the canyon and Reavis Falls.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Hoodoos on the Descent to Reavis Falls

layers of stone weathered over eons by water, wind, sun and cold

May 16, 2023May 15, 2023 MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

My previous post, “Dry Juniper Descent” had me above the ridge of the featured photograph.

I interrupted my descent to Reavis Falls to stop on a ridge overlooking Reavis Creek, the same ridge that forms the western wall of the canyon. By this time it was late afternoon on a March Day with the angle of the sun being perfect for capturing rock formations. Notice the effect of the light on the distant mountains.

This is the North / Northeast view of the opposite ridge above a flow from multiple springs on Lime Mountain.

This photograph was created from multiple images using tripod-mounted Kodak DCS ProSlr/c with a 50mm, 1.4 Canon lens.

Click Me for my Online Gallery

Hoodoos

The ridge and slopes are covered with a rock formation named Hoodoos for the fantastic shapes taken on by layers of stone weathered over eons by water, wind, sun and cold. These hoodoos are enormous, some precisely balanced and carved into elaborate shapes. The word “Hoodoo” derives from the name of the practice of sorcery or folk magic. You can image the effect on ancient people of coming upon these formations and believing them created by malevolent beings (djinns, goblins, demons) in their leisure time, when not causing problems, and worse, for humans. These beings are especially active in desert places, such as this, which has the comforting name of Cedar Basin.

The hoodoos cast a spell on me. I had never heard of Cedar Basin, but knew, as the sun was low in the west, I needed to unload my 70 pound pack, set up the tripod and camera to spend over an hour of precious time to capture the images of this blog.

Ancient Village

Cedar Basin forms on one side from the ridge of this photograph. On the other side of the ridge, the mountain slope levels out to a site settled by ancient people we call Sin Agua. There is nothing but a few stones left of their village and way of life.

Cedar Basin

Looking to the left of the Hoodoo Panorama photograph and into Cedar Basin, you see more of that same rock type that formed the hoodoos to the right on this same ridge. This is also the lower slopes of Lime Mountain, as you can see from the color of the upper ridge.

This and the following photographs were created using a tripod-mounted Kodak DCS ProSlr/c with a 200mm, 1.4 Canon L type lens.

Another side of the basin is formed by the ridge I am on. This side is across from the canyon of Reavis Creek and Falls. The trail leads down switchbacks from the Dry Juniper of my previous post to a dry draw. You can see the way I came in the following two photographs. I captured Castle Dome, then panned to the right for the rest of the ridge. You can see the trail to Reavis Ranch carved into the slopes of Castle Dome.

**Castle Dome Ridge and Reavis Ranch Trail**

I then panned one more time to the right to capture the ridge above Cedar Basin and the start of the hoodoos. It was an army spread across the entire ridge!!

My next posting will feature close-up of the most interesting hoodoos from the panorama, using a 200 mm telephoto lens.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Dry Juniper Descent

One-seed Juniper

May 15, 2023May 16, 2023 MichaelStephenWills8 Comments

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.

Looking into Reavis Creek Canyon from Lime Mountain

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

The Reavis Creek Canyon from Lime Mountain while still in shadow, morning

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

Superstition Wilderness Dawn

on the slopes of Lime Mountain

May 14, 2023May 13, 2023 MichaelStephenWills1 Comment

Pre-dawn on the fourth morning of my solo expedition to Reavis Falls, before the last posting “Among the Desert Wildflowers“, on the slopes of Lime Mountain, as the eastern sky became slightly less dark, I woke to an unusual sensation: total silence. The air was absolutely still, no insects trilled, the birds were still asleep. Lying very still, the ringing of my ears announced the silence.

In that silence I set up for this panorama taken from a tripod-mounted Kodak DCS ProSLR/c mounted with a Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM telephoto lens. It is 5 image files combined. The source file is about 300 MB.

That is Pinyon Mountain in the center distance. The Arizona Trail traverses that terrain, though it is not visible from this distance (it is about 3 miles away).

Lime Mountain is truly a light green, as you can see from the foreground ledge. From there, a cliff runs round where on a south-facing site there are cliff dwelling ruins. The trail to Reavis Falls runs to the right, along a ridge broken by a narrow canyon with access to Cedar Basin, also at the foot of these cliffs.

Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved

Evening on Two Bar Mountain

Shadows rising on the canyon walls

May 12, 2023May 13, 2023 MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

Another blog from my four day solo expedition to Reavis Falls in the remote eastern Superstition Wilderness. Here we will descend briefly to the canyon of Reavis Creek, below the Reavis Falls.

My previous blog Two Bar Mountain View featured this same landscape.

Shadows rising on the canyon walls are from Lime Mountain and Castle Dome. In the far canyon, below Two Bar Mountain, is a shadow from the notable cliff and prominence to the right, that rises above Reavis Falls, fall below and out of sight in the canyon.

Here is that prominence from that same day, late afternoon when the sun is just starting to be low enough to throw the cliff into relief. This is a single shot with a canon 200 mm lens. This day I had climbed out of Reavis Creek, up to to this point on the slopes of Lime Mountain. Here I enjoyed an afternoon, evening, night and early morning of the following day.

The second day of the solo expedition, I hiked into the canyon of Reavis Falls from a camp at the canyon mouth. Looking up from the creek this same cliff was prominant against the sky.

World at our Feet

On Peter’s Mesa

October 16, 2022October 11, 2022 MichaelStephenWills3 Comments

View North / Northwest from Peter’s Mesa. At our feet is a mature Saguaro Cactus towering over Charlebois Canyon, to the right Black Mountain. Bluff Spring Mountain, middle distance, then Black Top Mesa. Flatiron Peak, of the famed Superstition Mountain, is in distance. Photographed from Peter’s Trail on a March afternoon 2008. Superstition Wilderness, Tonto National Forest, Arizona

Bluff Spring Mountain, middle distance, then Black Top Mesa. Flatiron Peak, of the famed Superstition Mountain, is in distance. Photographed from Peter’s Trail on a March afternoon 2008. Superstition Wilderness, Tonto National Forest, Arizona

Click Me for the first post of this series, “Bluff Spring Mountain.

Morning / Evening

Can you see the Needle’s Eye?

October 14, 2022October 10, 2022 MichaelStephenWills2 Comments

The eye of Miner’s Needle is clear in both these South / Southeast views from Peter’s Mesa looking across the Music Canyon.

Many wildflowers, sprinkled like stars through the foreground of the morning photograph with Prickly Pear, Cholla and Saguaro cactus. Beware of “Jumping Cholla”, named for its seeming ability to attack passers-by. Another name, “Hanging Chain Cholla”, is more appropriate. Each chain with many hooked barbs is lightly attached to the branch, ready to snag a ride from unwary hikers.

Light rakes across the landscape in the evening photograph, taken from another vantage point on Peter’s Mesa. Miner’s Needle is four (4) miles away “as the crow flies,” i.e., line of sight distance.

Click Me for the first post of this series, “Blac k Mountain.

Panoramic

Superstition Glory

October 12, 2022October 10, 2022 MichaelStephenWills

View North / Northwest from Peter’s Trail looking back the way we came. Black Mountain on right, Bluff Spring Mountain left with LaBarge Canyon running to the Red Hills center. On a March afternoon 2008.

Click Me for the first post of this series, “Blac k Mountain.

Hear the Music

Roasted Yucca

October 10, 2022October 7, 2022 MichaelStephenWills4 Comments

Here we are climbing Peters Trail to the eponymous mesa and facing East to Music Mountain. Scattered in the brush are desiccated and live Prickly Pear cactus. Poles of young saguaro cactus like randomly placed telephone poles poke up around the lower slopes.

The first published record of Music Mountain is by Ray C. Howland of Mesa Arizona who sent a letter to “Everybody’s Magazine” that appeared in a feature called “Everybody’s Meeting Place: Where writers, readers and the editor gather for informal discussion,” May 1928, Volume 58, Issue 5, page 173. I reproduce Howland’s letter here with minor editing:

“I am in the deserts and mountains of Arizona most of the time. I go into town once each month for mail and provisions. I meet many things as I ramble around, many strange things, things that are beyond my ability to comprehend. One particular was in my mind as I read your printed thought in the back of Everybody’s. Far in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona, in the deepest, most rugged canyon, there are three caves halfway up a great yellow bluff. In these caves are mud dwellings. There are not the cliff-dwelling as found in other parts of Arizona.

The mud walls of these dwellings were made by people with very small hands. The handprints of these ancient masons remain as though they were made yesterday. Just below these caves a beautiful pool of crystal-clear water lies between grassy banks. Tall ghostlike sycamores grow there in great numbers.

I have camped many times beneath those sycamores. It is a beautiful spot. Such a difference between there and the hot desert that lies fifteen miles to the south.! As one lies there, just at twilight, begins the most wonderful music one could imagine. I have never heard music that could compare to it, vague, elusive at times, then again of greater volume. It is my opinion that no living being could record it.

The music is, I believe, beyond description. It seems to take you out of your moral self and transport you back ages and ages, almost to the beginning of things. For the time being one feels as though he were in another world.

I have often tried to solve this little private mystery. I can’t explain it. I can’t even describe it intelligently.

You will probably say as you read this that is is the wind among the pinnacles, caves, trees, etc. that make this wonder phenomenon. It cannot be, for usually there is no breeze in the mountains at twilight. It is still as a tomb except for that music. Besides when the breeze is blowing at any other hours of the day there is no sound.”

Here is a copy of that issue for you to see for yourselves.

In my photographs the bluffs described by Howland are seen clearly in the distance. During our expedition we were never able to visit the caves, though Dave described the location, caves, and dwellings. On Peter’s Mesa are remains of pits where Apaches and Yavapais gathered hearts of agave to roast. We visited a small cave in the side of Peter’s Mesa showing signs of high heat and possibly used for roasting agave.