Sabino Canyon Recreation Area

Author's Comments

The first time I walked the canyon road I did it in August at six in the morning, and I will tell you what surprised me. It was not the creek, though the creek is what brings most people. It was the way the light came down the canyon walls in stages, the upper rock catching sun while the floor was still in deep shadow, and how long that contrast held before the day flattened it. An hour, maybe a little more. Then everything went bright and the photograph I had come for was gone. Sabino is a canyon of edges. Saguaros stand on the slopes above, then the wash drops into cottonwood and sycamore along the creek, and the stone bridges thread the two together in a way that should not work and somehow does. The CCC built them to last and they have. I am partial to the third and fourth bridges, where the creek pools deep enough in spring to hold a real reflection of the canyon wall above. After a wet winter those pools are mirrors. In a dry year they are stones. Walk the road. Do not take the tram, or take it out and walk back. The tram moves at the pace of a tour and the canyon does not. Mornings in April, when the desert is still cool and the ocotillo is in bloom along the lower stretch, are the strongest argument this place makes. Bring a polarizer for the water. Bring patience for the light to find the canyon floor. The window is shorter than you think.

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