SWRS Survives the Flood, But Can It Survive the Road Closure?

The Southwest Research Station finds itself in a difficult position, caught between the financial demands of its parent company, the American Museum of Natural History, and the US Forest Service, which is enforcing a road closure that will likely exclude the station's workers and guests from access into Cave Creek Canyon via the damaged road.

I should wait until after Wednesday's meeting to report on the USFS closure policy: it should be clarified then. Right now I'm getting conflicting information about who will be allowed to travel on the main canyon road.

Dining room at the Southwest Research Station yesterday, completely intact after the flood (Photos by Narca)

The research station's big problem is loss of revenue. They are having to cancel some groups, and are trying to maintain others due to come through October. The big fire hit in 2011, and now the big flood. Their fear is that the American Museum of Natural History will decide that the research station isn't worth the trouble, particularly if the station fails to break even financially.

Not only the flood, but also the road closure, will most definitely impact the station's bottom line. It appears that the Forest Service will insist that the station's workers and guests travel an alternative route through Paradise and up East Turkey Creek, then back into Cave Creek Canyon from the top. Not only does this route add an extra 45 minutes of travel in each direction, but the small cars of a number of the station's workers can't ford the stream crossings along that route. Today and tomorrow, the SWRS van is meeting its workers in Portal, and ferrying them to work via the Turkey Creek route. However, this is not a viable solution. It imposes too great a hardship. In addition, East Turkey Creek itself is prone to wash-outs, and people staying at the research station could easily become stranded by the closure. In an emergency, that would be disastrous. The proposed alternative could be more dangerous than the damaged road. And then there are the station's guests to consider....

SWRS is vital to Portal's well-being. The station is also important to researchers and students from around the world. It may be time to tell our representative, Ron Barber, and the Arizona Senators that we need help here. After Wednesday's meeting, we'll be in a better position to know exactly what help to request from them!

Cabins at the Southwest Research Station

How does SWRS look after the flood? Fantastic.

The main  problems have been lack of electricity, which Columbus Electric handled as soon as they could, and the continuing lack of phone and fiber optic cable for communications.

Boiled water from the swimming pool was used for drinking.

When the flood happened, 35 people were staying at SWRS. Electricity went out, and the supply of bottled water for drinking only lasted a day and a half. After that, the station boiled water taken from the swimming pool for drinking. Very soon, Dawn Wilson, the station's director, was able to traverse the road with Ray Mendez, and she brought back the needed generator and most essential supplies. The station's guests were evacuated as soon as it was possible to do so safely.

The footbridge from the dining area looks unaffected.

The buildings and grounds are in great shape. Indeed the only small bit of damage that I saw was to the lower footbridge, where a portion of the planking is gone, but which is mostly intact.

The lower footbridge across Cave Creek

And the endangered Chiricahua Leopard Frogs? They are still here, as they are in the ponds at Paul and Linda's house and Cave Creek Ranch.

Leopard Frog (Pen-and-ink drawing by Narca)

Last Day in Cave Creek Canyon

Cave Creek Canyon above the South Fork confluence

(Photos by Narca)

Yesterday Alan and I hiked into Cave Creek Canyon before the closure was due to go into effect. He went a couple of miles up, as far as Diana's house, while I also hiked to Vista Point, to South Fork as far as the cabins and displaced creekbed, and to the Southwest Research Station. Everyone is concerned about conditions in the canyon we love, and I hope that these photos will answer some of your questions.

As we entered the canyon on Sunday morning, very quickly we found water from side canyons still flowing across the road, though much more sedately than three days earlier, by all reports.

Information pull off just above the Visitor Center, inundated

Damage to the canyon road between the Visitor Information Center and the South Fork confluence is extensive. Above the confluence, the road looks pretty much normal.

Here in particular, the road is severely undermined.

Extensive damage to the creekside pavement

Water flowing across the road above Idlewilde Campground

A large amount of debris is piled against the Stewart Bridge (the bridge at Stewart Campground), and one of the first orders of business is removing that stress to the bridge.

Still clinging to the bridge sign, about six feet up, are some possibly nervous invertebrates.

The next photo needs some explanation: I was standing toward the upstream end of the upper island of trees that the road used to go around on either side. Here the right hand side next to the creek has simply been carried off in the flood. From this point to the distant bend, the road is gone on this side of the island. The lefthand road remains intact.

Here this side of the road vanishes.

I took a side trip to Vista Point, curious whether it might be possible to see anything of the flood's aftermath, but only the usual canopy of green rises serenely above the flood.

Vista Point, looking up South Fork to the left of the prominence, and the main Cave Creek Canyon to the right.

Where South Fork meets the main canyon, the creek has demurely entered its channel again.

And now, come with me into South Fork.

Overall, the South Fork Road is in much better shape than the road through the main canyon, at least until a point above the two cabins, nearly a mile upstream from the gate. Geoff Bender made a pass through with a grader and improved the worst places.

The South Fork Road, showing evidence of the creek's rampage.

Both photos show the South Fork Road, a bit roughed up, but still in place.

This spot, to my untrained eye, looked to be the worst-damaged place on the South Fork Road.

A number of trees, like this Arizona Cypress, show scarring from the battering by debris carried in the floodwaters.

As in the main canyon, side canyons are still flowing. This one has been somewhat contained by the grader.

The South Fork Bridge appears to be in excellent shape, as do the cabins, from a quick glance.

Above the cabins, it's a different story. Here the creek jumped its channel to such a degree that the road now looks like a creekbed. I didn't go any further, but I'm told that the rocks continue for the next half-mile, to the old trailhead, where surprisingly the picnic ground and restroom are unscathed!

South Fork's new creek channel

I'll write a separate post on the Southwest Research Station. You'll be glad to see how fine it looks!

The cliff that I think of as the Easter Island Cliff towers tranquilly above the havoc.

'Hard' Closure Coming to Cave Creek Canyon

On Monday, the Forest Service plans to institute a 'hard' closure of Cave Creek Canyon, meaning no entry by any means, including foot, except to canyon residents. The closure will most likely last for months. Thus, tomorrow is the last day when people can enter the canyon on foot.

I've learned a few other details: the Herb Martyr Road above the research station is washed out at Crystal Wash.

Columbus Electric laid a ground wire up the canyon, so that the research station now has electricity, but no fiber optics cable for Internet.

The South Fork Road is okay to the bridge and cabins (though in need of cleanup), but above the cabins it is gone. South Fork reclaimed it. Interestingly, the picnic area and bathroom at the trailhead are intact.

The water system to the FS campgrounds is broken.

Below the canyon, John and Morgan's straw bale home was flooded inside, and up to the top of the first layer of bales. They may need a hand in cleaning up!

Farther away to the east, the Peloncillos were as hard hit as the Chiricahuas. The county road south of Animas into the Animas Valley and Diamond A (Gray) Ranch has been washed out in some places. At the southern end, along Geronimo Trail (accessed from 15th Street in Douglas), the old wooden bridge supporting the road has been completely swept away. This means that access to Guadalupe Canyon, the Slaughter Ranch, and Clanton Canyon has been severed.

One positive note: the Chiricahua Leopard Frogs in Reed's pond at Cave Creek Ranch have survived!

Portal After Storm Odile

For friends of Portal everywhere, the bottom line is that everyone is okay, after the remnants of Hurricane Odile targeted the Chiricahua Mountains and the sister villages of Portal, Arizona, and Rodeo, New Mexico. At our home, we received 5.29" of rain over a four-day period, nearly all of it falling on Wednesday night. (Contrast that with 11" in an hour at Cabo San Lucas, where the hurricane made landfall!)

We woke yesterday morning to a roaring creek in our normally-dry arroyo, and found ourselves homebound, until the flash flood went down.

Flashing arroyo cuts across our road

(Photos by Narca)

This morning, we joined neighbors Mark and Kathy Luckadoo to move rocks from the road down at the crossing, rake it, and smooth it until we could again drive through.

Mark, Kathy, and Alan at work on the crossing

Test run over the crossing––yes!

Then Alan and I went on a fact-finding foray.

This video taken yesterday showed Cave Creek flowing over the Portal Bridge. By today, the water had dropped below the bridge.

Portal Bridge, with some damage

Water level on Friday at the Portal Bridge

We were relieved to learn that our friends and neighbors appear all accounted for. Yes, everyone, the three houses below the research station, but above the South Fork confluence, all survived. Water ran over portions of the property, but spared the houses.  Phone service and power lines are all down for much of the canyon, including parts of Portal.

The American Museum of Natural History's Southwest Research Station also survived, though I don't know the extent of the damage. Dawn Wilson, SWRS director, was able to come out today, in search of generators. All I've been told is that about 35 people are at the station, without drinking water. Included are about 20 students from Wales. The station has begun to evacuate their guests.

The major damage is to the area of the canyon below the confluence of South Fork and the main fork of Cave Creek, where the two vastly swollen streams converged. Flooding was definitely a problem above that confluence also, for these three homes and for the research station, but at least those places weren't swept away.

The bridges are intact, and today an engineer is evaluating their integrity for the US Forest Service.

Road closure into Cave Creek Canyon

Right now the road into Cave Creek Canyon is closed at the Visitor Information Center. Above the VIC, near the lower campgrounds where the road splits and goes on both sides of an island of trees, the righthand road has been completely washed away. The left is still passable. So repair to infrastructure, mainly to the road, will no doubt keep the canyon closed for a while, to all but the most essential traffic. Here is a link to photos of the damage above the road closure.

Folks have been concerned enough for Linda Jakse that I should say specifically––she's okay. We were told that the water rose above their patio to the back door, but no further. When it receded, the patio had even survived. The future gatherings that she and Paul will no doubt host on that patio are not in jeopardy.

A number of homes literally became islands in the storm, yet they all emerged intact, or mostly so. Peter and Mary Sue Waser have impressive video of the raging Cave Creek flowing around their entire home, but I'm not able to find it online. Here is a very similar video by Deborah Johnson. Amazingly, only a little water entered their utility room. Other creekside homes, including Gloria's, Howard and Carol's, Eskild and Susan's, Richard and Rose Ann's, Marge Fagan's, are all okay, although some outbuildings and wells are damaged. I haven't heard how Dinah's home fared, other than rumor that when last seen, it was high and dry.

Peter and Mary Sue's home became an island in the stream.

From the Wasers' home, the river flowed down the main street of Portal, in front of the library and post office, before channeling back into the main creek bed.

The main street in Portal, which became a river for awhile

Here is Laura Mullen's video of water flowing down the main street! (The same area is shown in Deborah Johnson's video above.) The people in the video are standing on the rock wall you see in the distance in this photo.

Cave Creek Ranch suffered damage to creekside cabins. This video taken at the lodge gives you some idea of the power of the raging creek.

In some places, Cave Creek now flows down a new primary watercourse.

Across from the visitor center, Cave Creek has a new channel

Let's correct some misinformation reported by the sheriff's office and by national television: Gloria, our elder friend––and Portal's Honorary Mayor!––who was rescued from her home after Howard checked on her, was not up to her knees in water inside her home! Her situation was similar to the Wasers'. Water flowed all around her house but only a tiny bit got inside. However, her rescuers had to carry her through knee-deep water to retrieve her. She's fine now.

The Cochise County sheriff checked on people around Portal, to make sure everyone was accounted for. We do appreciate all the help from the sheriff's deputies, the Forest Service, the Border Patrol, and the county road folks, in dealing with the storm and its aftermath. Thank you!!

My information for Rodeo and the San Simon Valley is much sketchier. It did appear for awhile, however, that the ancient Pleistocene lake might reestablish itself to the north of Rodeo. The sheriff's Facebook page has a photo from State Line Road, along the AZ-NM border. Next, our valley gets to remember that it is, actually, a semidesert grassland.

We all appreciate your concern and well-wishes. We're drying out now! And the butterflies are out in force. Hummingbirds are still swarming, Violet-green Swallows and Swainson's Hawks are still migrating.

Bordered Patch on sunflowers at the Visitor Information Center

A Western Screech Owl

Last night Alan and I ventured into Cave Creek Canyon above Portal, as wind swayed the sycamore branches, and a thickening crescent moon shone over the scene. We joined friends Dave Jasper and Rick Plage to see the location of a likely owl nest that Dodie Logue and Bob Hautman had found a couple of days ago.

Night deepened. We listened, hearing mostly the rustling of the leaves. When darkness was complete, a Western Screech Owl began to call, but it wasn't the usual territorial whistling or trilling. Dave thought it was perhaps a male's pillow talk. I wondered whether it was the female announcing to the male that she was ready for her evening meal. "Her" intensity while vocalizing in the cavity entrance made it clear that she was including the magic word: "Now!"

A Western Screech Owl calls in Cave Creek Canyon

(Photo by Narca)

Cave Creek Canyon is renowned for its small owls, which also include Whiskered Screech, Northern Pygmy, and Elf. Occasionally a Flammulated will also breed at lower elevations in the Chiricahua Mountains, though usually they are higher in the mountains.

Autumn Musings

Once again, drifts of autumn leaves shift with the winds in South Fork, in the Chiricahua Mountains. Madrone berries are peaking, and pulling in feasting birds. Above, the sky is frisky with mares' tails, foretelling an impending storm. All this richness!

Autumn along the South Fork Road (Photos by Narca)

And one friend who fully appreciated wild richness, no longer is here to do so. Farewell to Rich Stallcup, who showed me my first Montezuma Quail right here in the Chiricahuas, more than three decades ago.

Montezuma Quail (Acrylic painting by Narca)

Mexican Jay, tossing leaves

The only industrious creatures this afternoon are the jays, proving by their behavior that we've overlooked some subtle relation between them and the leaftossers of Central America... a musing that returns to Rich, who often connected ideas in an original manner. He told Peter Warshall, "They've put vultures and storks in the same family. Seems like a birder's great melding of bringing babies and recycling the dead."

The main idea that stayed with me from reading One Hundred Years of Solitude was Márquez's notion that the key to living well in old age is to reach an "honorable pact with solitude". We also face the challenge of reaching some peaceable accommodation with the loss of friends––with losing all of those whose going leaves an empty place against the sky.

Mexican Jay, a portrait

Fledgling Trogons!

Wow––6 trogons in South Fork this morning! My first glimpse was of a plump bird, breast on, perched on a creek boulder. That breast showed a big white crescent, framed above and below by dark, and my first thought was, surely not a Ring Ouzel! Surely not, indeed. Through binoculars it resolved into a fledgling trogon with darker-than-normal feathers framing the big white breast crescent.

Later I saw a second fledgling, accompanied by an adult male and possibly the sibling of the first, though they were separated by about 100 yards. This second youngster didn't look as dark below the chest band, and allowed a closer approach. Its tail, while showing copper, wasn't as bright as the tail of the first fledgling. Here it is:

Fledgling Elegant Trogon, front and back (Photos by Narca)

Up at the trailhead, two male trogons were contesting territorial rights. The younger male foraged, plucking insects from spider webs. Mostly the action was quiet, and the two even perched side by side for a while. But all it took was the arrival of a female trogon, and suddenly the two males were grappling mid-air!

Two male Elegant Trogons are sizing up each other.

The older male is warning away the younger with a bit of tail-flipping, prior to combat.

The underside of the tails of these two birds reveals their age difference: the bird on the left shows the heavier barring of a one-year-old male in his first summer of life. The bird on the right shows much finer barring under the tail––the pattern of an older male. The year-old bird also shows an anomalous white feather within the green of the breast. If that pattern holds true through future molts, we should be able to identify this individual in years to come.

Interestingly, none of these three adult males was the same as the male at the known nest. That male (often seen near the bridge) has an anomalous dark feather within the white breast band. He also has a mate, so it appears that at least 8 trogons, including the two fledglings, are in lower South Fork. It also appears that the trogon census missed some! Possibly running it in May instead of June, as customary, resulted in the census's low figure of 8 individuals for the entire Cave Creek drainage. (The June counts sometimes record fledglings; one year on the count a trogon fledged right before our eyes, and landed at our feet, stub-tailed and blinking at the world.)

Other fledglings were also out and about: young Bridled Titmice, young Painted Redstarts. The Painted Redstart fledglings are at that stage when birders unfamiliar with the plumage sometimes think they are seeing a Slate-throated Redstart. Today one of the young redstarts was a black-and-white blur, not yet showing a smidgeon of red, flycatching in the gloom beneath the big willow at the South Fork bridge.

Even a young Northern Goshawk came roaring in, perched briefly, glared at me, and flew off, kek-kek-kekking. A word of advice to the young trogons––¡Ojo!––keep your eyes open! 

Early morning in South Fork

Aahh, the Benefits of Exercising...

...in South Fork!

Elegant Trogon male (Photos by Narca)

For one, you may glimpse an Elegant Trogon descending to the creek bottom for a drink. This male was hover-sipping from a rill of water spilling between boulders, just as he would hover before a tree to pluck fruit.

For another, you might find new blooms of Butterfly Milkweed...

Butterfly Milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa

...or of Scarlet Penstemon.

Scarlet Penstemon, P. barbatus

For a third, an Apache Fox Squirrel could scamper across your path. In the US, this mammal lives only in the Chiricahua Mountains.

Apache (or Mexican) Fox Squirrel

A Variegated Fritillary could cross your path...

Variegated Fritillary, Euptoieta claudia

As the poet Rumi wrote, "The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep.... The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep."

Now, that was a good walk, was it not?