Sabino Canyon Recreation Area

Author's Comments

The first time I walked the tram road into Sabino, I did not understand what I was looking at. A creek in the desert reads as a contradiction. The Catalinas rise straight out of the saguaro forest, and somewhere in the folds of that rock there is running water and cottonwoods and the sound of a stream working its way over stone. It takes a few visits to stop being surprised by it. March is when I would send someone for the first time. The creek is still carrying winter runoff, the pools at the base of the bridges are deep enough to hold real reflections, and the cottonwoods are leafing out in a green that does not exist anywhere else in this landscape. The CCC bridges are the obvious subject and they earn the attention - low stone arches that look like they grew out of the canyon floor rather than being placed there. I tend to work the third and fourth bridges most. The light reaches the water there before it reaches the higher walls, and for maybe twenty minutes after sunrise the contrast between the lit creek and the shadowed canyon is the photograph. Walk the road. Do not take the tram on the first trip. The shuttle is efficient and it is also a way to miss almost everything that matters here, which is the slow shift from saguaro to sycamore as you climb, the small pools you can hear before you see, the way the canyon walls fold inward and change the light every few hundred yards. Get there at opening. By ten the canyon belongs to other people.

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