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The 'San Francisco Peaks' are a volcanic mountain range located in north central Arizona, United States, just north of Flagstaff.
The highest summit in the range, Humphreys Peak, is the highest point in the state of Arizona. The San Francisco Peaks (known locally as simply "the Peaks") are the remains of a once-higher group of extinct volcanoes.^[1] An aquifer within the caldera supplies much of Flagstaff's water while the mountain itself is located within the Coconino National Forest and is the site of much outdoor recreation.^[2]

Contents

History

Geography

Names

Publications

References

External links

History

In 1629, one hundred and forty seven years before San Francisco, California received its name, Spanish Friars founded a mission at a Hopi Indian village in honor of St. Francis, sixty five miles from the Peaks. 17th century Franciscans at Oraibi village gave the name San Francisco to the peaks to honor St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of their order.^[3]
Mountain man Antoine Leroux visited the Peaks in the mid 1850's, and guided several US expeditions exploring and surveying northern Arizona. Leroux guided them to the only reliable spring, on the west side of the Peaks. Later named Leroux Springs, this is still an important source of Flagstaff's municipal water supply.
Around 1877, John W. Young, son of Mormon leader Brigham Young, claimed the area around Leroux Springs, and built Fort Moroni, a log stockade, to house tie-cutters for the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad, then being built across northern Arizona.^[4]
The biologist Clinton Hart Merriam studied these mountains in 1889, describing a set of six 'life zones' found from the base to the summit of the mountains, based on the major components of their flora:

★ Lower Sonoran Zone - Sonoran Desert plants

★ Upper Sonoran Zone - Colorado Pinyon and juniper woods

★ Transition Zone - Ponderosa Pine forests

★ Canadian Zone - Rocky Mountain Douglas-fir and White Fir forest

★ Hudsonian Zone - tree line forests of Rocky Mountains Bristlecone Pine and Engelmann Spruce

★ Arctic-Alpine Zone - alpine tundra
Merriam considered that these life zones could be extended to cover all the world's vegetation types with the addition of only one more zone, the tropical zone. His pioneering studies remained the one of the most widespread climate zone classifications, in use for nearly 80 years.
In 1898, President William McKinley established the San Francisco Mountain Forest Reserve, at the request of Gifford Pinchot, head of the US Division of Forestry. Local reaction was hostile -- citizens of Williams, Arizona held a mass protest, and the ''Williams News'' editorialized that the reserve "virtually destroys Coconino County." In 1908, the Forest Reserve became part of the new Coconino National Forest.
The peaks have considerable religious significance to thirteen local American Indian tribes (including the Havasupai, Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni.) In particular, the peaks form the Navajo sacred mountain of the west, ''Dook'o'oosłííd''. It is associated with the color yellow, and is said to contain abalone inside, to be secured to the ground with a sunbeam, and to be covered with yellow clouds and evening twilight. It is gendered female.^[5]
The mountain provides a number of recreational opportunities, including snow skiing and hiking. Hart Prairie is a popular hiking area and Nature Conservancy preserve nestled just below the mountain's ski resort, Arizona Snowbowl. Recently, Arizona Snowbowl proposed a plan to expand the ski resort and begin snowmaking using reclaimed water. A coalition of tribes and environmental groups is suing the Coconino National Forest, which leases the land to the ski resort, in an attempt to stop the expansion.^[6]
Sudden and relatively unpredictable weather changes in Fall or Spring have resulted in unexpected snow fall bringing death from exposure to unprepared hikers. Native Americans tell the stories of Kachina spirits appearing during heavy snowfall events on the peaks.

Geography

Composite image of the mountains, from satellite imagery projected onto an elevation model.

The four highest individual peaks in Arizona are contained in the range:

★ Humphreys Peak, 12,633 feet (3,851 meters)

★ Agassiz Peak, 12,356 feet (3,766 meters)

★ Fremont Peak, 11,969 feet (3,648 meters)

★ Aubineau Peak, 11838 feet (3,608 meters)

★ Rees Peak, 11,474 feet (3,497 meters)

★ Doyle Peak, 11,460 feet (3,493 meters)
The San Francisco Peaks are home to the only alpine tundra environment in Arizona.^[7][8]

Names

★ Dook'o'oosłííd—Diné (Navajo)

★ Nuva'tuk-iya-ovi—Hopi

★ Dził Tso—Dilzhe’e Apache

★ Tsii Bina—Aa'ku (Acoma)

★ Nuvaxatuh—Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute)

★ Hvehasahpatch or ''Huassapatch''—Havasu 'Baaja (Havasupai)

★ Wik'hanbaja—Hwal`bay (Hualapai)

★ Wimonagaw'a—Yavapai

★ Sunha K'hbchu Yalanne—A:shiwi (Zuni)

★ Sierra sin Agua Spanish

★ The Peaks—Anglo Arizonans

Source:⁴

Publications

★ Duffield, Wendell A., 1998, Volcanoes of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, Grand Canyon Association. ISBN 0938216589. Reviews

References

1. San Francisco Peaks
2. San Francisco Peaks, AZ
3. They Came to the Mountain, , Platt, Cline, Northern Arizona University with Old Town Press, 1976,
4. The Mountains Know Arizona, , Rose, Houk, Arizona Highways Books, ,
5. Robert S. McPherson, ''Sacred Land, Sacred View: Navajo perceptions of the Four Corners Region'', Brigham Young University, ISBN 1-56085-008-6.
6. Save The Peaks
7. A Field Guide to the Plants of Arizona, , Anne Orth, Epple, Falcon Publishing, ,
8. Alpine Tundra

External links

★ Live webcam of the San Francisco Peaks