A Visual and Verbal Narrative of Arizona's Salt River
December 15, 2023 – It has been almost a year since I started my exploration of the Salt River. And one task I wanted to accomplish before twelve months ended was to catch a Sonora sucker, something I had failed to do when this journey started in January. I nicknamed the Sonora sucker the “Bronze …
November 12, 2023 – As I kept exploring and researching the Salt River, new places to visit continued to reveal themselves, sometimes in surprising ways. One of these sites, the Tres Rio Wetlands, popped up on my computer one day, and I made a trip to visit it along with a few other places on …
November 7, 2023 – Although I had previously visited the beginning of the Salt River where the Black and White Rivers meet on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, I wanted to see the very highest headwaters, too. With that in mind, Leslie and I headed up to Springerville, Arizona, to visit the Black River …
October 5, 2023 – I broke camp at Apache Lake and made a spontaneous decision to visit the upper reaches of Roosevelt Lake. I was curious to see the last of the free-flowing Salt River before it emptied into Roosevelt. I retraced my path over the Apache Trail and then headed east on Arizona State …
October 4, 2023 – There was still one lake I needed to visit, Apache Lake, so I carved out a few days to explore it and cross it off my list of places on the Salt River. Apache Lake is located between Canyon Lake and Roosevelt Lake. It is formed by Horse Mesa Dam and …
August 20, 2023 – In 1868 Phillip Duppa predicted that from an obscure settlement in the Salt River Valley “a new city will spring phoenix-like upon the ruins of a former civilization.” Duppa was, of course, referring to what is now known as Phoenix, Arizona, and he is credited with giving it its name. No …
August 10, 2023 – For the past eight months I have been exploring up and down the length of the Salt River in southcentral Arizona. I have seen firsthand the wondrous natural beauty of the entire river as well as the impressive human-made structures that have been constructed along its length. Without question, these human-made …
July 26, 2023 – With temperatures soaring past 110 °F in the Salt River Valley the past month, it has been too hot to do any exploring. I felt it was wiser to work indoors on the stack of research materials that are piling up in my office and wait for cooler weather. And then …
July 4, 2023 – Having visited several of the canals north of the Salt River, I felt the need to see at least one to the south. The maps showed a long bike path on the Consolidated Canal, so I picked that one to explore. The day promised to be hot with temperatures forecasted to …
June 8, 2023 – For three hours I drove from San Carlos, Arizona, on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation to the Black River Crossing. It was 45 miles of axle-busting dirt road, and I was glad to finally reach my destination and get out of the truck. My purpose for the drive was simple: …