Try this easy hike to a historic ranching cabin
Welcome. July 1959. The words etched into a concrete step at V Lazy Y cabin place the now dilapidated homestead in Coconino National Forest squarely in an era of souped-up Chevys, sock hops and television as the big new thing.
The structure, which is the centerpiece of a rickety ranch spread with barn, well, corrals and an outhouse, remains standing courtesy of decades of patch jobs, its corrugated metal roof sagging over boarded-up windows and asphalt shingles slapped on in willy-nilly style.
What looks like a fruit tree, near the end of its life cycle, grows by the front porch.
Shaded by a stand of tall ponderosa pines, the site is 23 miles east of Camp Verde and 1.5 miles north of State Route 260. Forest Road 142G, one of several rough dirt roads that wander among the juniper-studded terrain, runs by the cabin complex and can be used for an easy, scenic hike.
The cabin is situated in open rangeland between West Clear Creek Wilderness and Fossil Springs Wilderness.
Compared to the jaw-dropping scenery of the water-carved wilderness areas that buffer its north and south edges, the grassy pastures, shallow draws and low hills around the cabin site embody a stark beauty, the kind that needs time to bloom in the brain — the kind that only blossoms with a long walk and immersion into the quiet mysteries of the remains of a midcentury home on the range.
The trek into the past begins where the unsigned forest road crosses a cattle guard. The road passes by the junction with the General Crook Trail before heading north through scrubland with hazy mountain vistas peeking out over the horizons. A stick- and barbed-wire fence runs the length of
the road, meeting up with a major corral complex about a mile in.
Beyond the corrals, the ranch appears on the west side of the twisted two-track. It’s easy to envision the weather-ravaged structures in their prime as purpose-built: unfussy and utilitarian.
Bales of wire, rusted gates and a smattering of broken furniture lie about in disuse. What can sound sort of like rustling livestock is only wind pushing through open doors and cracks in walls.
Around the back, a large, rusted water tank and well pump speak to the self-sufficiency required of a place like this. Less than 2 miles from the highway yet more than a half-century removed
from the present, the cabin stands as a reminder of simpler times, livestock roundups and a working life in the outdoors.
Read more of Mare Czinar’s hikes at http://arizonahiking.blogspot.com.