Thick-billed parrots once were plentiful in Arizona, but today, the state has only six — all in captivity. This pair lives at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. | Bruce D. Taubert
In Depth

Thick & Thin

WHAT A GLORIOUS RACKET IT MUST HAVE BEEN. What an incredible clamor filled a Chiricahua Mountains forest one August day in 1904, when a flock of as...
Keet Seel ruins sits perched on a cliff beneath a streak-stained sheer canyon wall. By Laurence Parent
Culture

Remains to be Seen

NAVAJO NATIONAL MONUMENT By Robert Stieve For the first time in four hours, Rick was at a loss for words. I couldn’t come up with anything,...
On the fifth day of the trip, author Kevin Fedarko (left) and photographer Pete McBride traverse a stretch of terrain across from 29 Mile Canyon. | RICH RUDOW
Latest Feature

A Walk in the Park

In September 2015, Flagstaff writer Kevin Fedarko and his best friend, photographer Pete McBride, set off from Lees Ferry in a quixotic quest to walk...
The remnants of Ruby and Sherry Bowen’s desert home are preserved in Tucson Mountain Park. | Jeff Maltzman
Latest Feature

Out in the Desert

MORE THAN ONE TRAIL will take you to the old stone house in the hills west of Tucson. I like to begin at the Camino de Oeste Trailhead and follow the...
A sunlit slope in the Mount Logan Wilderness is awash with desert vegetation. The 14,650-acre wilderness area was designated in 1984. | JONATHAN BUFORD
Latest Feature

The Outside World

Yellow wildflowers surround a prickly pear cactus in this late-afternoon scene from the Coyote Mountains Wilderness, which stretches for 5,080...
Writer Tyler Williams surveys a significant rainstorm from the Mogollon Rim, east of Baker Butte. There, the Rim and the Arizona Divide make a sharp turn toward the east. | John Burcham
Latest Feature

There’s A Fine Line

THERE IS A LONE BRISTLECONE PINE that grows above timberline, on a slope of cinders. In winter, the tree emerges and hides with the passing of storm...
A building thunderstorm looms over the Kendrick Trail, in the Kaibab National Forest. | Laurence Parent
Hiking

Kendrick Trail

Kaibab National Forest On May 24, 2000, Mother Nature tossed a bolt of lightning at a ponderosa pine on the southwest side of Kendrick Peak. That...
Sunrise paints a meadow along Forest Road 249, or Three Forks Road, which is part of the Nutrioso Loop drive in the White Mountains of Eastern Arizona. | Rusty Childress
Scenic Drives

Nutrioso Loop

Nutrioso Loop White Mountains Nutria and oso are Spanish for “otter” and “bear,” respectively. But there aren’t any otters around the community...