The Arizona Snowbelt and Volcanoes of Flagstaff

Like much of the rest of the continent, Arizona is a land of extremes.  While most people figure the land to be a sun-baked desert favored by golfing retirees, 27% of the state is still forested, which is actually on par with many countries in western Europe.  One such area makes up a good portion of the middle of the state, in a lovely mass of pines that stretch from the rim of the Grand Canyon to the New Mexican border, surrounded on the north and east sides by high sagebrush desert and grasslands, and on the south and west sides by the desert of imagination, the Sonoran, complete with the branching saguaros and seemingly bare mountains.  The lands on the north and east sides looking into the mountains and forests can be seen in an earlier post here.  Of course, the crowning point of the coniferous oasis would be the volcanic peaks around Flagstaff, renowned for their quality of skiing and picturesque proportions.

The San Francisco Peaks from I-40 eastbound, about 7 miles west of the peaks and Flagstaff, and 7200 feet above sea level.

When a child draws a picture of a mountain, usually a triangle with a jagged snowline and cap on top, these peaks are just about what they look like, owing to the neat (if volatile) formation of volcanic mountains such as these.  The scene is enough to make one think they are in some part of California or Colorado rather than dusty hot Arizona, but this is where that picture was taken, not 20 miles from the northern edge of the Sonoran desert.  Elevation means a lot out here, so much so that traveling from Phoenix to Flagstaff (150 miles) is the climactic equivalent of traveling from Phoenix to Montana or Alberta.  The area around the base of the peaks can often reach into the mild 40's during the day, but the freezing nights in the teens and persistent snowfall of 100 inches a year usually means a nice powder of several feet blesses the landscape for some time.  These were the exact conditions when I was last there, in the third week of December back in 2008.  "Powder" certainly described the snow, which gets its light consistency from being depleted of saturation after Pacific rains hit the California coastal mountains, their leftover moisture is spread thin in the desert skies, and then are forced against these higher elevations once more, this time very much, well, powdery.  This is surely one of the more difficult places in the world to make a wet and powerful snowball.

About 10 more miles back from the vantage point in the photograph above.  The peaks are visible from as far away as Williams.  

This sort of landscape survives in pockets even further south into the Sonoran desert in the form of "sky islands", mountains that catch leftover Pacific moisture before it makes a powerful stop in the Rockies to the east.  The great central Arizonan forests do reach a southern end generally north of I-10 and the Mexican border, where they are separated, by a bridge between the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts consisting of lovely grasslands and oak woodlands, from ranges to the south that carry the alpine forests and winter snows well south into central Mexico.  Like much of the rest of the arid west, the snows and forests are quickly passed through on our present modes of transportation, which no doubt leads to an even greater impression on passersby.