Ashes to ashes in Summerhaven
By M. John Fayhee |
Summerhaven, Arizona, is a hamlet unlike any other. Located 27 snaky miles north of Tucson, Summerhaven is, to the best of my knowledge, the closest any municipality in the U.S. comes to being located on the top of a mountain, in this case, 9,157-foot Mt. Lemmon.
Wikipedia lists Summerhaven’s elevation at “approximately 8,200 feet,” which would make it Arizona’s highest town, after Alpine, at 8,000 feet, but locals I’ve talked with say it’s just a smidgen under 8-grand; that would make it the state’s second-highest hamlet.
The first time I visited Summerhaven, maybe 15 years ago, I decided that this was the place where I wanted to retire. It was early October and the temperature in Tucson, almost 6,000 feet lower, was hovering in the high-90s. In Summerhaven, autumn was in full bloom and the town was hosting its annual Oktoberfest. It was shady and cool, the definition of so-called “Sky Island” mountain ranges that dominate southern Arizona and, to a lesser extent, southern New Mexico. My wife and I sipped brewskis amidst the tall pines, forgetting for a while that we were in the heart of the Sonoran Desert.
The second time I visited Summerhaven was in early November 1997. I had been hiking the 800-mile Arizona Trail, which passes close enough that the siren song of suds compelled me to take a short detour. I got a room at the local lodge and spent a convivial evening with the townspeople who gathered nightly in the lodge’s small tavern. The cast of characters consisted of old-timers sporting chest-length beards, rough-hewn ladies wearing Sorels and numerous variations on the dropout/misfit/lost soul theme that defines so much of Mountain Country sociology. The main topics-of-conversation were the recent cold snap, which had pushed temperatures down into the mid-20s, and someone’s plans to organize a carpool to Tucson to fetch provisions. My serious woody for Summerhaven amounted to the obvious: This was as much a mountain town, populated by flannel-shirt-wearing, wood-chopping, help-your-neighbors mountain people, as any altitudinous place I had ever visited or lived in. Yet, it was a mountain town with easy access to some of the best desert country, and one of the best desert cities, in the nation. My ass was smit.
I mean, this place has it all. It’s located in a small valley near the crest of the Santa Catalina Mountains, almost all of which lie within the boundaries of the Coronado National Forest. Summerhaven is a stone’s throw from dozens of hiking trails. Summerhaven is high enough that many of its local streambeds boast live water year-round — a cause for heartfelt hallelujahs in southern Arizona. And, two miles up the hill, lay Mount Lemmon Ski Valley, the southernmost ski area in the contiguous U.S. The ski area, believe it or not, boasts an average annual snowfall of 200 inches, and has three lifts, 18 trails and a vertical drop of almost 1,000 feet, which is almost equal to that of Monarch and Wolf Creek.
In addition, there’s only one paved road into and out of Summerhaven, and that road makes for one of the sweetest rides in the country, and I say that having traversed almost every section of asphalt that can rightly be included on the superlative two-lane list. It’s called the Catalina Highway and I’ll place it alongside the Going-to-the-Sun Road, Trail Ridge Road, Independence Pass and Mt. Evans Road any day of the week. It begins in the land of saguaros, scorpions and lizards and ends about 2,000 curves later in an ecological setting that’s the closest thing to alpine in this part of the world. The highway is stunningly beautiful with snow, pullouts and views, shady picnic areas, and campgrounds—the whole recreational/aesthetic shootin’ match.
In the summer of 2003, the massive Aspen Fire mostly incinerated my would-be retirement home. The lodge and bar were toasted. All told, some 250 of the 700 structures in and around metro Summerhaven went up in smoke. I returned to Summerhaven this past January. My wife and I had ventured to Tucson for some urban-based interfacing with crass commercialism, and we decided to drive up the Catalina Highway. Some winter storms had blown through, so the ski area was kicking ass and hundreds of desert-dwellers were out and about frolicking in the snow — making snowmen, sledding on cardboard and engaging in snowball fights.
Despite the magic blanket of white, my heart sank when we pulled into town. It wasn’t just that the hillsides bore significant evidence of the conflagration that had raged five years prior. And it wasn’t just that the remains of the lodge and bar had been removed, leaving behind a giant mud-filled hole. The main cause of my sadness was that, on hillsides in every direction, high-end new houses — mostly of the second-home variety — dominated the landscape. Whereas before the fire, Summerhaven was a hamlet primarily of funky old cabins, occupied by residents of humble means. Now, affluenza had infected the uppermost flanks of Mt. Lemmon. We ate lunch on the deck of the Mt. Lemmon Café and, while there, talked with a long-time resident.
“The fire changed everything,” she said, “This used to be such a close-knit mountain community, but a lot of the old-timers bought their cabins way back when and didn’t have insurance, so they couldn’t afford to rebuild after the fire, at least partially because anything new would have to be built to code. They ended up having to sell their lots and leave. And these new people aren’t mountain people. They come up on weekends and treat the few locals left like servants. The new homeowners worked through county government to oppose the rebuilding of the bar because they say it’s a safety issue with the Catalina Highway. We had a bar here for decades.”
She had decided to move when the ski valley closed for the season — after more than 20 years in Summerhaven. “I still don’t know where I’m going to go,” she spat. “It doesn’t seem like there’s any place left.”
Why does this atonal feedback loop always form the soundtrack of the West? It’s like there’s a laboratory where people of means are cloned, armed with more cash than taste, and then set loose upon an unsuspecting world with heads firmly implanted up their Dockers-adorned posteriors. Why can’t just once — ONCE!!! — a cool place not have its soul blown to smithereens by incoming rounds of upper-crusty second-homeowners bent upon aggressive social annihilation? I understand that Summerhaven was toasted by the Aspen Fire and that much rebuilding had to be done. But why couldn’t the town’s pre-fire style have served as a template, or at least a guiding light, for that rebuilding? Why wasn’t the first edifice that emerged from the ashes the town’s bar? Sigh.
While negotiating the Catalina Highway back to Tucson, I found solace, as I often do, in the knowledge and hope that, sooner or later, enough economic bubbles will burst in the U.S. that Mountain Country will be lit up with the fireworks of liberation; that second homeowners will retreat to their gated lowland enclaves and abandon those monuments to themselves that dot the landscapes of vertical terrain like legions of architectural incarnations of “Ozymandias.” Then, all people who prefer things The Way They Were will have to do is wander up to their favorite headwaters and pick and choose which abandoned vacation home best suits their needs. Bad credit won’t be a problem. All mortgage applications will be accepted. Interest rates will be below prime. And the concept of repossession will take on a new meaning. MG
