big man tips

THE BACK ROADS TO POTATO LAKE Thistles around Potato Lake attract pollinators. Whether called crayfish, crawfish, crawdads or aquatic cockroaches, there are two sure things about the prolific freshwater crustaceans--they harm native species and they love bacon. With few natural agents to control them, the population of non-native crayfish released into Arizona lakes and streams via bait bucket dumps or other means, has exploded. Potato Lake is surrounded by pine forests. Their voracious appetites and territory-hogging talents are decimating indigenous aquatic wildlife. They consume the eggs and larvae of native fish, amphibians and reptiles and gobble up critical food supplies. Invasive crayfish threaten native species. Plus, their nearly year-round reproductive cycle means they can commandeer a waterhole in no time flat. They need to go. Forest Road 9362T serves as the trail. The best way to help eradicate them is to prevent their introduction in the first place. The second-best way i...

MILK RANCH POINT Pine-Strawberry  Highline Trail Back in the 1880s, Rial Allen ran cattle along the East Verde River and operated a dairy on Milk Ranch Point. The Mormon settler, who was also a founder of the town of Pine, produced cheese, butter and milk for the locals and crews working on the Atlantic & Pacific railroad. The Allen family left the area in 1891 and today, there�s nary a trace of the dairy that helped sustain waves of hardy pioneers who came to establish communities in the Tonto Basin. Milk Ranch Point promontory, which hovers above the hamlets of Pine-Strawberry, is part of the Mogollon Rim, a 200-mile uplifted shelf that marks the division of the Colorado Plateau and Arizona�s Basin and Range zone. The imposing geological feature is a scaffold of pine and fossiliferous sediments squeezed into fractured vertical cliffs that rise to over 7000 feet. There are two popular ways to get to the wind-ravaged peninsula---the hard way and the harder way.   With a ve...

NASH POINT Coconino National Forest. Hikers approach the Calf Pen Canyon overlook Forest Service road maps can burn the eyeballs. Black tentacles sprawled across paper maps or smart devise screens bearing nondescript numbers and letters give clues about road conditions, where you can take a motorized vehicle and nearby towns and landmarks. But, where do the roads go? Why would a road end abruptly at no particular destination? The best way to find answers is to park and hoof it. Forest Road 9365R north of the town of Strawberry is a good one to try because its terminus-- marked only by an �X� on most maps-- is a memorable sight.   View from Nash Point Located on the Mogollon Rim just outside of Fossil Springs Wilderness Area, the road begins as a typical backwoods Jeep route. On a base of sandstone, smothered in a forest of Alligator junipers and Ponderosa pines, hikers pass through a pinecone cluttered corridor bolstered by massive rock slabs. At about a mile into the trek, the roa...

RED ROCK SPRING to GERONIMO TRAILHEAD Tonto National Forest Red Rock Spring Water is the life force of the forest. In Arizona, where water is too often in short supply, the forests have some creative ways of storing and distributing the precious liquid. An example of a natural water system can be observed near the base of the Mogollon Rim near Pine. Beneath the imposing, vertical cliffs that mark the edge of the Colorado Plateau, numerous springs provide reliable water sources for wildlife and long distance hikers. The springs are charged when melting snow and rainfall on the 7,000-foot escarpment, soaks through the porous rocks emerging hundreds of feet below as gushing waterfalls (Horton Spring) oozing seeps (Dripping Spring) and trickling fountains like those encountered on a hike from Forest Road 64 to the Geronimo Trailhead. Using Red Rock Trail #294 and part of Highline Trail #31, this customizable, water-themed trek visits two springs and a creek on its way through scrubby foot...