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Association for Conservation Information
Parks/Cultural/Historical Magazine Article
"Watchable Wildlife: Kendrick Park Watchable Wildlife Trail,"
by Julie Hammonds
I went to Kendrick Park Watchable Wildlife Trail hoping to see big mammals: swift antelope, stately elk or perhaps a mule deer or two.
And I did see big mammals — hoofed mammals, brown in color, mammals whose bellowing calls echoed eerily in the morning fog. But were they elk? No. They were cows. The wary bovines eyed me from a grove of ponderosa pine trees, then snorted and turned to trot away when I took a step in their direction.
This is one of the perils of advising others how or where to watch wildlife. I could tell readers that people see antelope, elk and mule deer from the Kendrick Park Watchable Wildlife Trail. But trusting my advice you may go there yourself and see only cows.
What can I tell you? Some days are like that. When I go out wildlife watching, sure this is my day to spot a particular colorful bird or impressive mammal or rare lizard, I most often come home disappointed. So now I try to tuck a sense of anticipation in my backpack and leave expectations behind. Instead of asking, “Will I see this specific bird?” I wonder, “What are the birds doing today?”
Occasionally I forget this healthy attitude, as on the day I went to Kendrick Park with a checklist of big mammals in hand. So that day I didn’t see the expected antelope, or elk, or even mule deer. But I did get a scolding from an Abert’s squirrel perched on a high branch. I watched the forest come to life after a rainstorm. I saw the coppery flash of Northern flicker wings catching the sunlight.
My specific expectations might have been disappointed, but my anticipation of a pleasant visit was not. What could be better than that?
A Trail for All Seasons
Located about 20 miles northwest of Flagstaff on U.S. Highway 180, Kendrick Park Watchable Wildlife Trail’s large parking area and restrooms make a handy rest stop. Two easy walking trails loop through the nearby woods, offering views of the grasslands called Kendrick Park to the north.
The longer trail winds 1.5 miles through groves of ponderosa pine and aspen and along meadows. Though it’s mostly on dirt, gentle terrain allows the walker to concentrate on the views rather than the footing. The shorter trail, just one-quarter mile, is paved, allowing those who use wheelchairs to enjoy the area. One sees multi-generation families on the shorter loop, small children holding the hands of grandparents, age no barrier to exploration. Families with wheeled strollers are a common sight on this loop as well.
Walking these trails is both educational and peaceful. Well-designed interpretive signs explain the effects of fire, forest and grassland ecology, local land-use history, the geology of the San Francisco Peaks and other topics.
This area receives use year-round. During the summer travel season, many visitors stop on their way to or from the Grand Canyon. In autumn, the fall colors spring to life. Randy Wilson, editor of the Flagstaff-based Arizona Daily Sun newspaper, offers an inside tip: “There are aspen groves just beyond the wildlife area that are less crowded with leaf peepers than on the other side of the road at Hart Prairie.” In winter, locals use the parking lot as a staging point for ski trips across Kendrick Park.
Speaking of Kendrick …
The 10,418-foot Kendrick Peak and the grassy parkland at its base were named for Henry Lane Kendrick, a New Hampshire native who spent several years in Arizona while serving in the U.S. Army. According to a sign along the shorter loop trail, Maj. Kendrick escorted the Sitgreaves Expedition, the first recorded exploration of land north of the San Francisco Peaks. The group passed through the east end of the park in October 1851. Kendrick later took command of Fort Defiance, at the eastern edge of Arizona on what is now the Navajo Nation. While there, he studied the geology of the region. “Kendrick may have been the first to notice the coal deposits of Black Mesa,” according to the sign. In 1857, he joined the faculty of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., where he taught chemistry, mineralogy and geology until his retirement in 1880. After his death in 1891, Kendrick was buried at West Point. In addition to the peak and grasslands, Kendrick Street in Flagstaff also carries his name.
A Walk After Rains
On a recent monsoon morning at Kendrick Park, an early rain has left water glistening on the grass; when a gust of wind rattles the aspen leaves, drops fall delicately to earth, a second shower. As the air warms, the soil and trees release their moisture. A fog forms around each tree trunk, writhing as it rises toward a now-blue sky. In the rain-freshened air, edges of distant mountains look outlined in black pen.
As I walk the longer loop trail, low-slanting light between the dark trunks of young rain-soaked ponderosa pines sets the dewy grasses aflame with silver fire. Fine points of the landscape appear as whole landscapes in themselves: black lines on aspen bark, like the writing of a lost civilization; repeating patterns of flower petals.
After two nights free-camping on the Coconino National Forest with the added spice of not choosing a site either night until after dusk, I feel tired but happy as I capture these visions through a camera with a macro lens. Am I watching wildlife, as I came here to do? Not exactly. But sleep deprivation will do that to your plans.
Fortunately my sleep-
walking is interrupted regularly by birds and small mammals out exploring after the morning shower. Western bluebirds flutter in the aspens, while quiet dark-eyed juncos peck through the duff beneath the pines. A female Abert’s squirrel, gray with a red patch on her shoulders, chirps at me from a branch above my head, sounding a clear warning despite the big green pine cone in her mouth. In the distance, a woodpecker drums on the trunk of a young ponderosa pine. Upon closer inspection, this turns out to be a Williamson’s sapsucker with a red throat and yellow belly.
While I walk, the sky clouds over again. Thunder announces sudden strikes of lightning at the far edge of Kendrick Park; to the southeast, the San Francisco Peaks cloak themselves in cloud. Then the heavens open with huge, slow raindrops soon followed by their smaller, faster brethren. I decide to wait out the afternoon shower in my car, which started the day caked in dust but is no longer. The lightning, long-rolling thunder and swiftly shrouding rain make the car a cozy haven.
From a Garden of Ideas
How did this watchable wildlife trail come to be here?
First came money: The parking lot and restroom were funded with federal transportation dollars in the early 1990s.
Then came a garden of ideas from a large group of partners, starting with the U.S. Forest Service and the Northern
Arizona Audubon Society. At the time, these groups were looking for a place where they could combine a trail with a demonstration project to show the effects of various silvicultural techniques on wildlife habitat. Tammy Randall-Parker worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Flagstaff back then. As she remembers it, “About that time Frank Brandt [of the Northern Arizona Audubon Society] went out and saw the new parking area and began looking at laying out a trail from that location. He ran into the cool stuff in there, like the sapsucker tree and the acorn woodpecker tree and the old car and the historic site. So that’s when we realized it could be more than a place to show silvicultural treatments and how they affect habitat. It would also be a place where we could showcase the area’s historical features.”
Several groups provided volunteers and financial support for the watchable wildlife trail, according to Randall-Parker. These included the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Coconino Sportsmen and local Boy Scouts. The Arizona Game and Fish Heritage Fund contributed money as well.
As the project began to gather steam, the Forest Service’s recreational planners got involved. They saw the area’s potential to offer a wheelchair-accessible trail, an idea that excited everyone. Connie Birkland was one of the Forest Service employees who worked on trail design and layout, along with Brian Poturalski and engineer Paul Standing. Birkland says the planners were excited about the diversity of wildlife habitat in the area, which offers many different wildlife-viewing opportunities, “[Including] not only birds, but elk and antelope, and small mammals as well.”
A Reward for Patience
As I sit sheltered in my car, the hard rain eases and finally breaks. Now in late afternoon the sun emerges once again, temporarily victorious. I emerge too, to see what can be seen.
On every rain-soaked log, chipmunks scamper, pulling down stalks of raindrop-laden grass (whether to eat this fresh clean salad or sip from the water, I can’t tell). A young rabbit hops from beneath a log to pause warily in the sunshine and dry its fur. Fat squirrels clamber onto the lichen-cloaked rocks.
Though the sky has cleared to a celebratory deep blue, birds emerge more slowly, and while I wait for their song I catch the tune of a chorus of coyotes; first a few from the west, perhaps from the flanks of Kendrick Mountain, then a handful more from the southeast where the San Francisco Peaks are shaking off the clouds. I imagine a coyote clan released from the den’s confines, yipping and rolling in an excess of energy at the prospect of this afternoon’s hunt.
Glad I waited out the rainstorm, I walk the longer trail out to the aspens and back, soaking in the sunshine while I look and listen for critters. A pygmy nuthatch calls nearby, peep, peep-peep, but mostly the area is quiet. Now and then a piece of bark loosened by fire long ago and now by rain falls from the trunk of an aspen to the leaf-littered ground with a crash, causing me to jump.
Though I seem to see elk around every tree, those expectations will not be rewarded today. But what I do see is rewarding enough: a rain-washed world and a few of its residents, going about their business come rain or come shine.
This article was published in the September–October 2008 issue of Arizona Wildlife Views magazine. To subscribe or give a gift, order online or call (800) 777-0015.
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