Cave Creek Canyon

Author's Comments

The drive in is part of the experience. You come at Cave Creek from the east, through Portal, which is barely a town, and the road climbs gently into a canyon that does not announce itself the way the more famous canyons of the Southwest do. Then the rhyolite walls rise. Cathedral Rock catches the late light first, going from gray to rose to a deep ember red as the sun drops, and the sycamores along the creek throw long shadows across the canyon floor. I came initially for the birds. Everyone does. The elegant trogon is a real animal that lives in this real canyon, and in May the Mexican species push north through here in a way that happens almost nowhere else in the country. But what kept me longer than I had planned was the canyon itself, and specifically the canyon at two ends of the day. Golden hour against those west-facing cliffs is something I have not quite seen elsewhere - the rhyolite holds warm color longer than sandstone does, and the contrast against the green of the sycamore leaves in October goes almost unreal. And then night. The Chiricahuas sit in one of the darkest pockets of sky left in the lower forty-eight, and from the canyon floor the Milky Way rises directly over the cliffs in summer with a clarity that takes a minute to accept. I have made photographs here that I could not make anywhere else, simply because there is no light to compete with. Stay at the research station if you can. There is no gas in Portal. Bring everything you need and plan to stay longer than you meant to.

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