San Francisco Peaks

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Template:Short description Template:Infobox mountain The San Francisco Peaks (Navajo: Template:Spell-nv, Template:Langx, Hopi: Nuva'tukya'ovi, Western Apache: Dził Tso, Keres: Tsii Bina, Southern Paiute: Nuvaxatuh, Havasupai-Hualapai: Hvehasahpatch/Huassapatch/Wik'hanbaja, Yavapai: Wi:mun Kwa, Zuni: Sunha K'hbchu Yalanne, Mojave: 'Amat 'Iikwe Nyava)<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> are a volcanic mountain range in north central Arizona, just north of Flagstaff. Part of the San Francisco volcanic field, the Peaks are the remnant of the former San Francisco Mountain, a prehistoricaly larger single stratovolcano.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The highest summit in the range, Humphreys Peak, is the highest point in the state of Arizona at Template:Convert in elevation. 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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name=bbc>Template:Cite news</ref>

Geography

File:Humphreys Peak AZ.jpg
The San Francisco Peaks, Spring 2015
File:SanFranciscoPeaks2007.jpg
The San Francisco Peaks (with Agassiz center), Fall 2007
File:Bellemont Arizona View.jpg
The San Francisco Peaks as seen from Bellemont, Arizona, Winter 2014
File:Humphreys peak summit trail panorama.jpg
Panorama, taken from above tree-line near Humphrey's Peak (on left)

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 that rise to a height of more than Template:Convert above sea level.

Around 200,000 years ago, the fully matured San Francisco Mountain is estimated to have been around Template:Convert in altitude. Since then, much of the mountain has been removed to create the "Inner Basin", a depressed collapse caldera within the outer ring of summits. The missing material may have been removed quickly and explosively by a lateral blast type of eruptive event – similar to the Mount St. Helens in Washington state in the form of a lateral eruption. Alternatively, this may have occurred gradually from landslides, erosion by water and glaciation, or a combination of these with such an eruption."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> 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.<ref name="houk">Template:Cite book</ref>

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 hostileTemplate:Sndcitizens of Williams, Arizona, protested and the Williams News editorialized that the reserve "virtually destroys Coconino County."<ref name="houk"/> 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.<ref name=bbc/> In 2011, construction began on a wastewater pipeline to the peaks. In response, there was an ongoing series of protest actions including demonstrations and lockdowns in which protesters chained themselves to construction equipment.<ref name=hcn>Template:Cite news</ref> In 2012, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Arizona Snowbowl, and wastewater to snow conversion began in the 2012–2013 ski season.<ref name=nytimes>Template:Cite news</ref>

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:

File:SanFranciscoPeaks.ASTER,20031021.jpg
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.
  • Lower Sonoran Zone – Sonoran Desert plants
  • Upper Sonoran Zone – pinyon and juniper woodlands
  • Transition Zone – ponderosa pine forests
  • Canadian Zone – mixed conifer forest
  • Hudsonian Zone – spruce-fir or subalpine conifer forest
  • Arctic-Alpine Zone – alpine tundra

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 that 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:<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> The average annual precipitation in the subalpine forest is Template:Convert.

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Only a few small herbaceous plants have established themselves in the tundra. One of these species, is the endemic and threatened San Francisco Peaks groundsel (Packera franciscana), which is found nowhere else in the world.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="gorp">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The average annual precipitation in the tundra is Template:Convert.

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 Template:Spell-nv. 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.<ref name="mcpherson">Robert S. McPherson, Sacred Land, Sacred View: Navajo perceptions of the Four Corners Region, Brigham Young University, Template:ISBN.Template:Page needed</ref>

File:Lockett Meadow, 1996.jpg
Lockett Meadow, 1996
File:San Francisco Peaks 01.jpg
San Francisco Peaks viewed from U.S. Route 89

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.<ref name=Glowacka>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:RP 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".<ref name=Glowacka/> The peaks are seen as the home of the katsinam or kachina spirits, ancestors who have become clouds following their death.<ref name=Glowacka/> 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.<ref name=Glowacka/> 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;<ref name=Glowacka/> katsinam imagery dates to the 13th century as well.<ref name=Glowacka/>Template:RP Other Native American peoples also relate kachina spirits to heavy snowfalls on the peaks.

There are several names for the San Francisco Peaks in local languages:<ref name="houk" />

  • Template:Spell-nv–(Navajo) ("Dookʼoʼoosłííd", which means "the summit that never melts" or "the mountain peak that never thaws".)
  • Nuvaʼtukyaʼovi – (Hopi) (Nuvaʼtukyaʼovi, which means "place-of-snow-on-the-very-top")
  • Dził Tso – Dilzhe’e – (Apache)
  • Tsii Bina – Aaʼku – (Acoma)
  • Nuvaxatuh – Nuwuvi – (Southern Paiute)
  • Hvehasahpatch or Huassapatch – Havasu ʼBaaja – (Havasupai)
  • Wikʼhanbaja – Hwalʼbay – (Hualapai)
  • Wi꞉mun Kwa – Yavapai
  • Sunha Kʼhbchu Yalanne – A:shiwi (Zuni)
  • ʼAmat ʼIikwe Nyava<ref>Munro, P et al. A Mojave Dictionary Los Angeles: UCLA, 1992</ref> – Hamakhav – (Mojave)
  • Sierra sin Agua – (Spanish)
  • The Peaks – (Anglo Arizonans)

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See also

References

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Further reading

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