Best Tent Camping: Arizona. Kirstin Olmon Phillips

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      A uniquely Arizonan tent site at Yavapai Campground (campground 25)

PREFACE

      As our plane made its bumpy arrival at Sky Harbor International Airport, the kid next to us frowned while looking out across the runway and mumbled resentfully, “I hate Arizona. It’s so brown.”

      We exchanged wry smiles, hearing the echo of so many other voices, even some long-term Phoenicians we know. Later we mulled over the injustice of it. Obviously, this boy has never camped by the rushing Black River or seen the broad meadows and towering pines above the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We planned exactly where we’d take this poor, misguided youth to show him just how green this state can be: up to the verdant crowns of the southern sky islands, the Chiricahuas, Pinaleños, Santa Ritas, Santa Catalinas, Huachucas; along the emerald riparian corridors of the Verde, Gila, and San Pedro Rivers; and into the cool forests of the Mogollon Rim and the White Mountains.

      Then we’d bring that kid to the desert again, to reveal to him the kaleidoscope of hues that look brown from an airplane window. In the spring, we’d hike him around the Superstitions and to Lake Pleasant to show him hillsides carpeted in yellow as the Mexican gold poppies and brittlebush bloom, and dotted with purple lupines and orange and pink globemallows. He’d see the startling fuchsia, crimson, and lemon yellow of cholla, hedgehog, and prickly pear flowers against deep-green cactus skins. Finally, we’d make a grand tour of Sedona, Sycamore Canyon, the Painted Desert, and the Grand Canyon, to see all the vivid colors of the earth itself.

      We have no idea who that boy was or how he ended up spending his time in Arizona, but this book is for him and all the kids out there like him.

      Perhaps you’re a visitor from elsewhere, or maybe you’re a new Arizona resident wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into. If metro Phoenix is your main frame of reference, you might be forgiven for having some misgivings. There’s an old joke that Arizona has only two seasons, hot and hotter, but cheer up—you can find spring, summer, winter, or fall within a 5-hour drive at almost any time of the year. Somewhere in Arizona, there’s a landscape and a climate to please almost СКАЧАТЬ