Exploring the Northern Arizona desert

The Northern Arizona high desert is a cool place to go up and do some exploring if you ever get the chance. With lots of old ruins, wagon train trails, and even a couple of ghost towns to find. The “Yano” as it’s called by most of the locals that live in Winslow and Holbrook has it’s own quite beauty, Mesquite trees, scrub brush, about a zillion types of “jumping Cactus” and Petrified wood.

I grew up in Winslow back in the day it was a really hopping place with the Santa fee railroads La Posada Hotel, all the tourists traveling down the historic Route 66, and the Hubble Trading Post right there in town. It was a grand place to grow up.

I was one of those kids who spent every chance I got out in the desert looking at the land, the way the high desert looks is quite amazing. With the different colors of the sandstone rock mixing in with the color of the grass, the lava debris laying all over the place from all the volcanic eruptions of the super volcano called the San Fransisco Mountain over in Flagstaff, Arizona.

It makes for a really cool place to adventure if thats what you like to do. I do and every once in a while some friends will call form back home and off we go into the wild for a few days. Looking for dinosaur bones is a favorite pastime, arrowhead hunting is another good one. What I really like to do is, go out and try to find those places where the Native peoples had there settlements, and try to picture myself living there a couple thousand years ago. The reservation has lots of cool places to find stuff, but I like to venture off to the edge of the forest over east of Grand Falls, where the buffalo range is.

All the land east of there all the way to Gallop, New Mexico is considered the high plains desert. Going north all the way to the Utah / Colorado border mostly the four corners area is the northern boundary of the high desert. It’s a very big area almost 5000 square miles of open land, that not very many people have seen up close. Here is where you can find crazy cool stuff like an old cold war SAC B-52 base tucked in the hills behind Holbrook about 18-20 miles south of town.

Another fun place is the old highway66 roadbed that runs along Interstate 40, there are a couple those old bridges that the trains crossed in the cowboy days about 100 years ago, remember Arizona is only 100 years old this year. If you really want to find some cool stuff then get one of those topographical maps and a compass, then pick out a spot and go. I have taken dozens of friends and other people out into the desert to go hunting for wild pigs, coyotes, and even the odd lost jeep or two.

Take my word for it the high desert around Winslow and Holbrook is a really cool place to find yourself, just ask the Eagles band members, they spent a whole summer in 1973 running around there having a great time writing the songs for the greatest country rock album ever. Hey I got side tracked there, man...

Anyway the whole point of this hub is to tell you about adventuring and hiking the high desert. You don’t need much since there is a town within a days ride from just about anywhere out there. I like to take along some light camping gear, sleeping bag, water cans, cooking gear, knife, the maps and a compass, food supplies, and if possible at least a .357 handgun, or a 12gauge shot gun. Hey mountain lions remember! You need the fire power for the Javelinas those pigs are mean and some of the females get to be about 200lbs. Now you are thinking that this is alot of stuff to be carrying around the yano, right? Well I got my buddy, lil truck and my brother (who weighs in at 345) brings the Quads with us. So not much walking is done unless you want to.

The hardest part is where to set up camp since there is lots of rock formations every where. The wash basin is NOT THE PLACE TO SET UP CAMP! It doesn’t matter how beautiful the flowers down there are, if it rains 35 miles away the water will flow down hill and you are down hill. Water is the most destructive force on the planet!

Once you got the spot the next thing is wood for the fire, setting up a wind block( the wind blows hard) and digging the hole for the toilet. Yes ladys the hole’‘) that way when you are ready to go just shovel the dirt back in and only the mountain lions will know. The northern desert is a very beautiful place that has not been spoiled by technology, housing developments, and the rest of civilization yet, so the only rule we enforce is “You brought it in, you take it back out!” or just drop it in the “Hole” works for me.

All the rest of the stuff is pretty much common sense stuff that everybody who has ever been out in the wide open spaces already knows so no sense in telling it again. For the most part I spend most of my time out there with the camera, my sketching book, and thats about it for me. I have always like being out there in then”Yano” it is a powerful place with lots of cool imagery to build dreams on. Once you find the right place and sit for a while, you start to “see” the buffalo running across the desert or hear the wagon train rumbling along with all the noise of the people. It’s quite a place...