Flagstaff Urban Trail System - Buffalo Park

Author's Comments

What I love about Buffalo Park is how little it asks of you. The meadow is right there at the edge of town, the loop is paved, and the San Francisco Peaks sit on the northern horizon like they have been waiting. In summer, when the monsoon clouds clear by late evening and the air goes cold and dry the way only high desert air does, this is one of the easiest places I know to photograph the Milky Way over a real mountain foreground. Flagstaff's lighting ordinances do most of the work. The town glows faintly to the south, but turn your back to it and the sky deepens into something genuinely dark, the core of the galaxy rising over Humphreys Peak in July and August like it has been composed for you. I usually arrive an hour before astronomical twilight ends, walk a quarter of the loop to get the parking lot lights behind the trees, and set up facing north or northwest. The meadow grass takes a long exposure beautifully. The peaks hold their shape even at thirty seconds. It is not a secret place. You will see other tripods on a clear new moon weekend in August, and headlamps moving slowly along the loop. That is part of the texture of being here. The park is open all night and the walking is easy, which means you can stay until the core has rotated west and the meadow has gone fully silent except for elk somewhere out past the fence line. Bring more layers than you think you need. Even in July, the meadow at two in the morning is cold.

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