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A Visit with Peter Bigfoot of Reevis Mountain School of Self-Reliance
HEAD EAST from Phoenix, Arizona, and you’ll soon find yourself in open country. The Sonoran Desert rolls to the horizon, saguaros and ocotillo standing guard over this mostly unspoiled landscape. The highway rises to Gonzales Pass, where a frontier sheriff is said to have dropped off criminals arrested in his town, after confiscating their horses and boots, and forced them to walk back to Phoenix.
The road swoops through sage-colored hills and then sets you down in the town of Superior, a former copper mining town, now a burgeoning arts community. Standing at the borderline between rolling hills and rugged mountains, Superior is the site of famed skirmishes of the Apache Wars. From the cliffs that loom above the town, Apache warriors leapt to their death rather than be taken prisoner.
From Superior the highway snakes up through Devil’s Canyon, with its dramatic views and some of the best rock climbing in the country. The fenced-off mouths of mining tunnels can be seen from the highway, and some of the old workings still stand, stubborn against the forces of nature that are rusting and rotting them into the dry ground.
Some eighty miles east of Phoenix, you’ll reach the community of Globe-Miami, two towns with roots in mining and ranching, where history leaps out at every turn…
