Prescott by zoom

To readers from far away, here are views of downtown Prescott; to local readers, your chance to get a hillside view of our town so you can pick out all the details. Obviously the place to start: the Courthouse, with the city parking garage in the foreground and Union Street going up the hill on the other side.

Gurley Street, from the McCormick Street condo building (left foreground) all the way to the Hassayampa Hotel. including even a few Victorians at the very top. Plus the old Masonic building on Cortez peeking over the other buildings.

Compressed buildings over on Godwin Street, starting at the corner of Montezuma and looking east, including the post office, City Hall and the Chamber of Commerce.

Yavapai College buildings are at the very top of this view; the red brick structures are the Fine Arts Assn. building and the former movie house converted into offices for the Social Security Administration.

Here you can look all the way from Albertson's and the old Depot to the many white buildings of the VA hospital complex and up to the top of our local volcano, Glassford Hill.

A hillside full of houses.

The hillside scar that always accompanies a new building...

Though only a Big Box (Lowe's) would make a scar like this one! In the foreground, the balconies of the old Head Hotel show, as well as a major antenna tower.

McMansions near the Senator Highway, which leads into the forest south of town. As you can see, our downtown is very compact -- and full of trees, which, at this season, are barren and gray. The gray green foliage you see in many of the pictures is primarily scrub oak and juniper. Pictures, using the extreme zoom lens setting, were taken from a nearby hillside on the west side of town. When I got back to the house, a hungry robin was on a juniper, gobbling down the berries. The only picture I was able to get showed the tip of its tail and its beak. Ah, well. Win some, lose some.

Linkages: Some splendid pictures of remnants from days past by friend Bobbi (all local, by the way); Firefly Forest who takes wonderful nature pictures has just posted desert-in-bloom pix from down Picacho Peak way. And if you're looking for something strange, I give you the World Dream Bank. Speaking of dreams: if you happen to have a spare $5 mil, you might want to buy the acreage at the top of Mt. Tritle; it's on the market, according to Prescott Style. Tritle is the middle peak of the three highest mountains due south of town.

Mucking Up the Mountainside

The rise in this picture is the lower, Southeast slope of our very own volcano, Glassford Hill. For most of my years in Prescott, it was a pleasant small mountain, clean, with no man-mades to ruin the prospect. No longer. Prescott Valley can't grow fast enough for its city fathers. So what's wrong with a car dealer up on the mountainside. Good way to get noticed. Especially at night, when the place is all lit up. In fact, it is so bright that a friend and my daughter, independently, call it The Mother Ship. Truly garish, it is.

In contrast: this huge hillside apartment complex which matches the basalt outcroppings and almost looks as if it might be a monastery. The architect or builder should be congratuated for restraint, tho I'm told that at night, when the tenants all are home from work, the lights do come on.

Nearby, a sight that truly makes me shudder -- blades lined up cheek by jowl on both sides of SR69, California-style, ready to flatten more mountain for more shopping center. Just what we need -- lots of sales tax for the government and low-pay retail jobs for the subjects. BTW, I'm not ranting -- just commenting. But take a read of former PV councilman Tom Steele's blog, The Truth Prescott Valley. Might well get your juices worked up. And while I'm on the subject of PV, Steve Words had something to say about a concert at the new arena over east of Glassford Hill.

A Look at Lava...

There's nothing like a road trip to learn a little local geology. Aside from 89A over Mingus Mountain, my favorite earth science lesson is the short climb out of the Verde Valley through the Copper Canyon pass on I-17. Besides, the cuts through the mountain are very pretty, if you like that sort of thing. I do. Returning from my Flagstaff weekend gave me an opportunity to see what kind of photography is possible from the co-pilot's seat in the little green car. It turns out that the shutter is fast enough to let me take pictures from a car moving at highway speeds!

Take a look at that mesa capped by a lava flow up ahead! That's the elevation we're headed for.

The wall to the right (above) has a thick layer of grey basalt on top of well baked soil which in turn looks like it is sitting on older lava.

The obvious lava here is underneath the baked soil. But there must have been lava atop that to cook the dirt!

This mountain slice appears to include at least three different basaltic episodes, including a flow that filled a major crevice in the older hillside, as outlined by the pink.

Stripes like these are particularly stunning in the late afternoon or early morning sun. Brings out the red in the one-time soil layer.

As our car nears the top of the pass, the grey basalt capping the mesas is very evident. Reminds one of gnomes and similar creatures.

The final road cut at the very top of the pass is missing the lava cap. Either it eroded away or perhaps it never existed!

These two pictures (above and below) are a reminder that the same sorts of road cuts exist within the Prescott city limits! The traffic light is just beyond the entrance to Costco on SR69, while the picture below immediately precedes the entrance to the WalMart coming from the East. By the way, for a really good look at the rock layers, pop into the WalMart parking lot. Gives you an idea of what Glassford Hill (our local volcano) was up to 14 million years ago.

The Glassford Hill basalts continue across SR89 south of the Dells and over past Willow Creek Road. If you take a good look at those huge 1.4 billion year old granites of the Dells, you will see that they disappear under the northwestern flank of our volcano.

If all this rock and geologic talk gets to you, Wide World of Maps down in the Valley has a geologic map of Yavapai County. If you go to their site, you might also look for a cool book -- Roadside Geology of Arizona. Or buy the book locally at The Worm or possibly Sharlot Hall Museum store. I also have in my library A Prescott Area Geologic Field Guide for Earth Science Week 1999 which I probably bought at a meeting of the local archeological society; no mention of it by The Google, so I can't recommend a source other than the library.