Kathy Montgomery

Apr 18, 2024 | arizonahighways.com | Kathy Montgomery

Six years ago, William E. Simpson II was serving as a local adviser to crews battling the 2018 Klamathon Fire. He watched as flames raced toward his rural community, just south of the Soda Mountain Wilderness on the California-Oregon state line. Moving at an average speed of 4 mph, the fire was devouring everything in its path, Simpson says, until it reached an area where wild horses had grazed on grass and brush.

Mar 20, 2024 | arizonahighways.com | Kathy Montgomery

On Labor Day in 1934, some 7,000 visitors crowded onto Massai Point for the dedication of Chiricahua National Monument. While the Bisbee High School Bugle Corps played and dignitaries expounded, Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees sweated over 8,000 pounds of beef roasting in an 85-foot-long barbecue pit they’d blasted out of solid rock for the occasion. National Park Service chief engineer Frank Kittredge was the first of several government representatives to speak.

Mar 20, 2024 | arizonahighways.com | Kathy Montgomery

On a late afternoon in mid-November, the sun angles low over The Nature Conservancy’s Aravaipa Canyon guesthouse, lighting up a yellow­ing pecan tree like a flame. Below it, a dozen wild turkeys forage among lush foxtail grasses. It’s hard to imagine this serene spot as the headquarters of a large ranching and farming operation. But it once belonged to the T-Rail Ranch, which employed as many as 20 permanent cowboys and controlled 5,000 head of cattle at its peak.

Jan 24, 2024 | arizonahighways.com | Noah Austin |Kathy Montgomery |Robert Stieve |Kelly Vaughn

When it comes to public lands, Alaska is the most privileged state in the union. With more than 325 million acres of state and federal jurisdiction, there’s an endless stream of recreational opportunities up there. At the other end of the spectrum is Delaware, which has less than a thousand acres. Somewhere in between is Arizona — we rank fourth, behind Alaska, Nevada and California.

Jan 23, 2024 | arizonahighways.com | Kathy Montgomery

Driving the “hogback hills” is not the fastest way to get to the Orme School. But it’s the most scenic. It’s also the best way to imagine what it must have been like for Charles and Minna Orme to caravan their young family through the high desert of Central Arizona. No doubt this wide, dusty road would seem a superhighway to them — the route they traveled to their new ranch in 1929 was hardly more than a cow path.