Deer Springs Inn
Up on the mountain,
Tracing the Mogollon Rim,
We hike and return by way of
The towering Outlook,
Black clouds overhead
We climb 80 feet up to
Join Ranger GS3-1in his lair.
He scans the horizon for fire.
We chat and then leave for
Hopping-Hare cabin
We are dreamily breathing
In the sulfur laden air of
Lightening-split sky
Lying up in the loft,
Baptized by tumbling waters
When I was a youthful biology teacher in Buckeye, Arizona, a rural community southwest of Phoenix, a colleague privately shared information about a place he and his family vacationed – a place carefully guarded by all who frequented its cabins and woodlands. It was Deer Springs Inn. For forty years a retired publishing editor from Phoenix and his wife ministered to a little community of hand-built log cabins nestled in a grove of towering Ponderosa pines and to the families who frequented its beds, trails and campfires. The first time I visited Deer Springs Inn, my daughter Heather and I drove up to meet the owners on a day trip. What an adventure. After climbing the Mogollon Rim from Phoenix to Payson, we traveled along a two lane highway dotted by tourist hotels and cabins, local grills and hunting and fishing outfitters. We turned off the highway onto an unpaved forest road and drove on an undulating surface of rounded stones and rain carved gullies for 14 miles back into virgin Ponderosa Pine. Deer Springs abuts the White Mountain Apache reservation which acts as a wildlife refuge, harboring elk from hunters. Lou and Bea greeted us warmly and showed us around. Each little cabin sported a jaunty name like Silver Squirrel, Hopping Hare, Bounding Bear and so forth. There were five cabins that slept anywhere from 2 to 11 people. Lou had installed solar panels to heat the water and barely light the cabins. Each cabin has a good supply of aromatic wood and big potbellied stove. There were no phones, TVs or other accoutrement from the so-called civilized world. There was one Hamm radio at the main cabin. At that time hardly anyone had a cell phone or laptop.
Heather was studying drawing at Arizona State University. She left with dreams of drawing and painting on vacations and I with a plan to spend six weeks that following summer writing my first ever book. I look across my dining room today and there hangs a gorgeous painting of one meadow near Deer Springs painted by Heather, reminding me of how imbued our psyches become with the places we love and cherish.
August 9, Monday 1999
Lingering-on at Deer Springs Inn…Heather off to photograph, I to write…sitting on a redwood seat by a little statue of St. Francis – lover of nature. Annie, big black lab of Ed and Mary, is barking at some distance through the woods. Only the hum of a generator can be heard, and the mountain winds….
Susan Feathers 