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Winter view of Sinclair Wash from Sawmill Park

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Wonderful views of Sinclair Wash Canyon and the Flagstaff Urban Trail (incorrectly labeled “Arizona Trail” on google maps). The Park has a play structure for children, picnic tables, and a wall with two murals created by local artists. The north side mural is a mosaic depicting the role of lumbering and railroad in Flagstaff’s history. The last sawmill in Flagstaff, which closed in 1994, occupied the entire area between Sawmill Road and Butler Avenue. The south side mural is a painted collage; the County can commission local artists or organizations to change the content of the collage from time to time. The current collage was painted in 2016.  
Sawmill Park also hosts Willow Bend Environmental Education Center. From the kids’ playground, you can access informal trails to the Flagstaff Community Labyrinth, and to the Sinclair Wash Trail below. 


Sawmill Park

The tour extracts a wealth of information from books, agency reports, and the experience of City staff and NAU faculty, translates it into digestible form, and puts it into your smartphone or tablet. You can do a virtual tour in your home or hotel or a walking tour on the ground. You can even download the tour to your device if you want to walk in airplane mode.

Learn about the Rio de Flag and its tributaries in the Flagstaff area. Zoom into any part of the map, click on a pin, and learn about that location. Learn about Frances Short Pond, the seep at the Museum of Northern Arizona, the ongoing Flood Control Project, the still-visible lava flows that changed the course of Sinclair Wash and the Rio, how people re-routed the Rio through the heart of the City a century ago, Elden Spring, Picture Canyon, the I-40 wetlands, the potential use of reclaimed water for amenity flows, the underground channel in Southside.

The 5 parking places on Brannen Circle at Lone Tree Road provide the easiest access to Sinclair Wash Trail and the Flagstaff Community Labyrinth. Additional parking can be found on residential streets off of Brannen Circle. Sinclair Wash Trail is more interesting to the east because the wash has carved a 50-ft deep canyon, the vegetation is dominated by native trees, shrubs, & herbaceous plants, and unusual birds can be seen here. Some of the canyon’s plants are rare in other parts of Flagstaff, including willows, Arizona honeysuckle, and wild hops & wild grape. Please stay on the trails and help protect these rare plants for future generations. Poison ivy (photo) is one of the most abundant short shrubs in this canyon, and often grows intermixed with the other rare plants. Leaves of three – let it be! 

Sinclair Wash Trailhead at Lone Tree Road 

The City of Flagstaff is currently (2021) considering releasing reclaimed water just west of S1, which would keep Sinclair Wash flowing almost all year except many days in May and June when golf courses guzzle our reclaimed water. For the next mile downstream, the north canyon wall is Black lava and the south canyon wall is pale limestone. Until about 1 million years ago a predecessor of the Rio de Flag flowed west to east approximately along what is now Butler Avenue. Then the Dry Lake Volcano, 4 miles west of Flagstaff erupted, filling the stream with a type of lava (andesitic basalt) with a thick, sticky consistency (highly viscous). So viscous that the weight of the thick lava flow pushed some of the lava upslope into the adjacent floodplain and side channels. The basalt you see at each of these points are the uphill “toes of the flow.” Over time, Sinclair Wash carved a canyon between the basalt and the limestone, mostly by cutting away the softer limestone.

Sinclair Wash flows from Rogers Lake (about 6 miles away). The Rio de Flag (in the culvert under your feet) flows from the west side of The Peaks (the big mountains you see to the north, a mile higher in elevation than this location). The Rio de Flag has flowed in this channel since about 1910, when it was diverted from downtown Flagstaff. Both streams flow during spring snowmelt (8 weeks in a good snow year) and for a few hours after each summer thunderstorm. In the early 2020’s a flood control project will put the Rio’s flow into a buried concrete box at Frances Short Pond to emerge 3 miles later. When the flood control project is complete, this Rio channel will be dry, but the smaller Sinclair Wash flows might still be able to support the willows and other riparian plants downstream.

The confluence of two ephemeral washes

After a thunderstorm during the July-August “monsoon” season, the water flow overtops the culvert several times yearly, eroding a plunge pool below. Eventually, a bridge is needed here to control the erosion and keep the Trail open during monsoons. Nearby Points of Interest on this side trail are Sawmill County Park and the Flagstaff Community Labyrinth.

The side trail to the north leads upslope to the Flagstaff Community Labyrinth, Sawmill Park, and the Sawmill Neighborhood. To reach the labyrinth, take the side trail upslope and take all lefts for 1 minute. To reach Sawmill Park, stay on the biggest side trail for 3 minutes. There is a lot of poison ivy along the side trail, but none at the labyrinth or Sawmill Park. At this point, the Trail crosses over Sinclair Wash.

Trail to the Labyrinth and Sawmill Park

In 2018 and 2019, a male gray catbird sang here from mid-May to mid-July, but apparently did not find a mate (the western edge of the species’ normal range is in New Mexico). During migration, you can find ruby-crowned kinglets, Bullock orioles, and many other birds. If reclaimed water creates a perennial flow, we can expect even more birds to use this canyon for breeding or for migratory stopovers. Many of the rare birds in this canyon are attracted to the willows. Willows thrive here because of a combination of 3 factors: frequent water flows, canyon walls that provide the shade that keeps the soil moist, and a lack of elk. A mile east of there (across I-40) elk eat the willows down to the ground. But on this side of I-40, urban developments replaced the grasslands that elk also require. Although urban development in many ways degrades natural diversity, in this case it combines with other factors to support native plants and birds that would otherwise likely be absent.

As in most of Flagstaff, the most common year-round bird species in this canyon are pygmy nuthatch, white-breasted nuthatch, mountain chickadee, Steller jay, house finch, northern flicker, and hairy woodpecker. From May through August, common breeding birds include Black-headed grosbeak, house wren, western bluebird, pine siskin, American robin, and dark-eyed junco. Although most of the dark-eyed juncos that breed here fly south for the winter, the Black-hooded race of dark-eyed juncos (which breed far to the north) replace them here in winter. During May-August, this canyon is one of the few places in Flagstaff where one can regularly see lazuli bunting, yellow warbler, MacGillivray’s warbler, and (in most years) blue grosbeak.

Birds of Sinclair Wash; Trail junction to Willow Bend

This is probably the largest population of this lovely native plant in the City of Flagstaff. It spreads by runners and it blooms in June, covering the northeast-facing slope with red blossoms. The flowers appear clustered in a starburst pattern, unlike the paired pattern of domestic honeysuckle flowers. It is OK to pluck a blossom or two and bite into the base of the blossom to enjoy the sweet taste. But be careful to avoid the poison ivy that is intermixed with it.

The Rio de Flag and its Tributaries

Sawmill Park

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