San Francisco Peaks

San Francisco Peaks
Dookʼoʼoosłííd (Navajo)
Nuvatukya’ovi (Hopi)
Wi:mun Kwa (Yavapai)

The San Francisco Peaks viewed from atop nearby 9,000 ft Mount Elden
Highest point
Peak Humphreys Peak
Elevation 12,633 ft (3,851 m)
Coordinates 35°20′47″N 111°40′40″W / 35.34639°N 111.67778°W / 35.34639; -111.67778Coordinates: 35°20′47″N 111°40′40″W / 35.34639°N 111.67778°W / 35.34639; -111.67778
Geography

Map of San Francisco Peaks and surrounding volcanic field

Country United States
State Arizona
Geology
Type of rock Igneous

The San Francisco Peaks are a volcanic mountain range in north central Arizona, just north of Flagstaff and a remnant of the former San Francisco Mountain. The highest summit in the range, Humphreys Peak, is the highest point in the state of Arizona at 12,633 feet (3,851 m) in elevation. The San Francisco Peaks are the remains of an eroded stratovolcano.[1] An aquifer within the caldera supplies much of Flagstaff's water while the mountain itself is in the Coconino National Forest, a popular recreation site. The Arizona Snowbowl ski area is on the western slopes of Humphreys Peak, and has been the subject of major controversy involving several tribes and environmental groups.[2][3]

Geography

The San Francisco Peaks, Spring 2015
The San Francisco Peaks (with Agassiz center), Fall 2007.
The San Francisco Peaks as seen from Bellemont, Arizona, Winter 2014.

The six highest individual peaks in Arizona are contained in the range:

The mountain provides a number of recreational opportunities, including wintertime snow skiing and hiking the rest of the year. Hart Prairie is a popular hiking area and Nature Conservancy preserve located below the mountain's ski resort, Arizona Snowbowl.

Humphreys Peak (latitude 35°20'47" N) and Agassiz Peak (latitude 35°19'33" N) are the two farthest south-lying mountain peaks in the contiguous United States which rise to a height of more than 12,000 feet above sea level.

Prior to its collapse due to a lateral eruption to the northeast (around 200,000 years ago) and subsequent glacial erosion, the San Francisco Peaks fully matured elevation is estimated to have been around 16,000 feet.[4]

History

In 1629, 147 years before San Francisco, California, received that name, Spanish friars founded a mission at a Hopi Indian village in honor of St. Francis, 65 miles from the peaks. Seventeenth century Franciscans at Oraibi village gave the name San Francisco to the peaks to honor St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of their order.[5] The mountain man Antoine Leroux visited the San Francisco Peaks in the mid-1850s, and guided several American expeditions exploring and surveying northern Arizona. Leroux guided them to the only reliable spring, one on the western side of the peaks, which was later named Leroux Springs.

Around 1877, John Willard Young, a son of the Mormon leader Brigham Young, claimed the area around Leroux Springs, and he built Fort Moroni, a log stockade, to house railroad tie-cutters for the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, which was then being built across northern Arizona.[6]

In 1898, U.S. President William McKinley established the San Francisco Mountain Forest Reserve, at the request of Gifford Pinchot, the head of the U.S. Division of Forestry. The local reaction was hostile—citizens of Williams, Arizona, protested and the Williams News editorialized that the reserve "virtually destroys Coconino County."[6] In 1908, the San Francisco Mountain Forest Reserve became a part of the new Coconino National Forest.

In 2002, Arizona Snowbowl, the ski resort on the peaks, proposed a plan to expand and begin snowmaking using reclaimed water made of treated sewage effluent. A coalition of Indian tribes and environmental groups sued the Coconino National Forest, which leases the land to the ski resort, in an attempt to stop the proposed expansion, citing serious impacts to traditional culture, public health, and the environment.[3] In 2011, construction began on a wastewater pipeline to the peaks. In response, there has been an ongoing series of protest actions including demonstrations and lockdowns in which protesters have chained themselves to construction equipment.[7] Notable protesters include Navajo musician Klee Benally, singer/guitarist for the punk rock band Blackfire, who has been arrested for disorderly conduct during his ten years of protests.[8] As of 2012, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Arizona Snowbowl, and wastewater to snow conversion began in the 2012-2013 ski season.[8]

Ecology

The biologist Clinton Hart Merriam studied these mountains and surrounding areas in 1889, describing a set of six life zones found from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the summit of the mountains, based on elevation, latitude, and average precipitation. He designated their characteristic flora, as follows:

Composite image of the Peaks and the San Francisco volcanic field, looking SW towards Flagstaff. NASA image from satellite imagery projected onto a digital elevation model.

Merriam considered that these life zones could be extended to cover all the world's vegetation types with the addition of only one more zone, the tropical zone.

The San Francisco Peaks themselves contain four of the six life zones. The four life zones which are found along the slopes of the San Francisco Peaks are listed below along with their approximate elevation ranges, dominant tree species found within each of the four life zones, and average annual precipitation of each life zone:[9]

In native culture

The San Francisco Peaks have considerable religious significance to thirteen local American Indian tribes (including the Havasupai, Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni.) In particular, the peaks form the Navajo sacred mountain of the west, called Dook'o'oosłííd. The peaks are associated with the color yellow, and they are said to contain abalone inside, to be secured to the ground with a sunbeam, and to be covered with yellow clouds and evening twilight. They are gendered female.[16]

For the Hopi people, the San Francisco Peaks are associated with the intercardinal direction southwest. They constitute ritually pure sacred spaces, and are used as sources for ceremonial objects.[17]:553-556 The alignment of the sunset from the peaks to Hopi villages on Black Mesa is used to calculate the winter solstice, signifying "the beginning of a new year, with a new planting season and new life."[17] The peaks are seen as the home of the katsinam or kachina spirits, ancestors who have become clouds following their death.[17] Katsinam are invited to Hopi villages to serve as ethical and spiritual guides to the Hopi community from midwinter to midsummer. Aaloosaktukwi or Humphrey's Peak holds particular religious significance and is associated with the deity Aaloosaka, a symbol of the Two-Horn Society, a religious group among the Hopi dating to the occupation of the Awat’ovi village on Antelope Mesa.[17] Depiction of the peaks in association with calendar-keeping is attested in a kiva at the Hisatsinom settlement of Homol'ovi, which was occupied from 1250 to 1425;[17]katsinam imagery dates to the 13th century as well.[17]:556 Other Native American peoples also relate kachina spirits to heavy snowfalls on the peaks.

Lockett Meadow, 1996

There are several names for the San Francisco Peaks in local languages:[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "San Francisco Peaks". USGS factsheet. Retrieved 2006-12-16.
  2. ↑ "San Francisco Peaks, AZ". NASA Earth Observatory. Retrieved 2006-05-23.
  3. 1 2 Nasaw, Daniel (2011-10-19). "Indians oppose 'recycled' sewage for Arizona skiing". BBC News Magazine. BBC.
  4. ↑ Hardy, James A. "The History of the San Francisco Peaks" (PDF). Flagstaff Visitor Center.
  5. ↑ Cline, Platt (1976). They Came to the Mountain. Flagstaff: Northern Arizona University with Old Town Press.
  6. 1 2 3 Houk, Rose (2003). "San Francisco Peaks". The Mountains Know Arizona. Arizona Highways Books.
  7. ↑ MacMillan, Leslie (August 19, 2013). "Diné activist protests wastewater-to-snow scheme". High Country News.
  8. 1 2 MacMillan, Leslie (September 26, 2012). "Resort's Snow Won't Be Pure This Year; It'll Be Sewage". New York Times.
  9. ↑ "Biotic Communities of the Colorado Plateau". Northern Arizona University and United States Geological Survey. Retrieved March 21, 2012.
  10. ↑ "Alpine Tundra" (PDF). Coconino National Forest Plan Revision. United States Forest Service. Retrieved 2012-03-21.
  11. ↑ "Species Biology And Population Trend" (PDF). Arizona Game and Fish Department. Retrieved 2012-03-21.
  12. ↑ "Alpine Tundra Biome". Northern Arizona University. Retrieved 2012-03-21.
  13. ↑ Epple, Anne Orth; Epple, Lewis E. (1995). A Field Guide to the Plants of Arizona. Falcon Publishing.
  14. ↑ "Alpine Tundra". Arizona Game and Fish Department. Retrieved 2006-09-09.
  15. ↑ "Kachina Peaks Wilderness". GORP.
  16. ↑ Robert S. McPherson, Sacred Land, Sacred View: Navajo perceptions of the Four Corners Region, Brigham Young University, ISBN 1-56085-008-6.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Glowacka, Maria; Dorothy Washburn; Justin Richland (2009). "Nuvatukya'ovi, San Francisco Peaks". Current Anthropology. 50 (4). doi:10.1086/599069. ISSN 0011-3204.
  18. ↑ Munro, P et al. A Mojave Dictionary Los Angeles: UCLA, 1992

Further reading

San Francisco Peaks viewed from U.S. Route 89
180 degree S/W panorama from the top of the Agassiz Peak chairlift
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