Time and Again: A Hike for All Seasons

West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon

Coconino National Forest

6-miles round trip, easy

Before we begin, a cursory nod to tin can tourism. The drive to the West Fork trailhead is unfailingly part of this adventure: a provider of perspective and a precursor to the wonderment of the hike.  State Route 89A between Flagstaff and Sedona passes through the heart of Oak Creek Canyon and offers ten-plus miles of hairpin turns, white-knuckle grades, and jaw-dropping scenery before the tin can pulls into the parking area and feet touch the trail. 

Red Rock and Ice, 2012.

Late December, 2012: We are standing at the first crossing of Oak Creek, considering how to safely—and dryly—traverse the stream.  At the risk of sounding repetitive in an echoing gorge... we’ve been here before, been here before, been here before.  Over the years and through the seasons, various permutations of our group have hiked the West Fork: in springtime, summer, and early autumn, on cloudy days and sunny days, in warm temperatures and cool temperatures, with high water and low water.  On this day—one of the final days of 2012—the sky is clear, the air is cold, and Oak Creek is running frigid, frozen over in spots. So it’s a bit of déjà vu, but our collective memory is now laced with ice and cloaked in white.

To reach this first crossing, we have passed through the remains of an earlier day: an abandoned orchard, rich with the promise of untended fruit on spring hikes, craggy and forlorn on this winter visit.  Architectural fragments of Mayhew's Lodge, built in 1926 and destroyed by fire in 1980, line the trail.  Legend tells us that the resort was patronized by the likes of Zane Grey, Jimmy Stewart, Clark Gable, Walt Disney, and President Herbert Hoover.

Moon Window, Mayhew's Lodge Ruins, December 2012.

Invariably we pause here, pondering previous visitors and surveying a toppled stone fireplace, crumbling pillars, a small cave used for storage.  For most of the year, the ruins are practically obscured by capricious, untamed foliage.  On this December hike, however, they are snow-dusted and austere, almost ethereal.  A moon window mounted in a stone wall frames the landscape, conferring a contemplative mood upon the hike.

Oak Creek Turn-Around, Spring 2004.

After the ruins, the trail bears right and begins its ramble up Oak Creek Canyon.  Springtime, summer, early autumn: it is a leisurely stroll, with little elevation change, ample shade in warmer months, and transcendent sandstone cliffs towering over every step of the sandy trail.  The path is clear for the first three miles, intermittently crossing Oak Creek as it ripples along the canyon floor, occasionally asking hikers to make tactical use of river stones or to splash-step in shallow water.  

Beyond the customary turn-around, the canyon walls close in upon Oak Creek, and we've surmised the journey requires more frequent boulder-hopping, wading and, dare we say, swimming as it vanishes into the Secret Mountain/Red Rocks Wilderness.
    

Crossing Oak Creek, December 2012.

The trail, then, is familiar, the setting and scenery like cherished friends; and yet, winter introduces remarkable variation to the canyon-scape.  The hike becomes a story of interplay between snow and sandstone, a dialogue of quiet deliberation, with recurring questions of what water-darkened rocks to trust, which fallen logs to test, whether iced-over stretches of creek will support three hikers, two hikers, one hiker at a time... or none at all.  Accidental slips or slides into the creek mean something different in December than they do in April, May, or early September: a soaking and somewhat refreshing inconvenience in mild weather turns suddenly and soddenly into a bone-chilling disruption to the winter hike. 

Oak Creek, December 2012.

In the end, December teaches us something about perspective, about considering the view from the opposite shore.  At the final crossing of Oak Creek— a perplexing and precarious traverse on the outbound hike—the best way to proceed becomes clearer and consequently less precarious.  Single file, we cross a frozen-solid span tucked around a downstream bend and are safely across Oak Creek for the last time this day.  

Oak Creek Canyon, Late Summer 1999.

Returning to the trailhead, we encounter a cheerful young couple looking notionally, if not physically, prepared for the hike.  The man is pushing a baby (also cheerful) in a stroller.  We’ll never know how many crossings, if any, the cheerful group with the stroller complete, but—having experienced the West Fork of Oak Creek across the years and in different seasons—we understand, at least, the motivation.  The hike is new again every time we skirt the ruins and enter the canyon.