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By Mike Tully

I am old enough to remember both the Ponderosa and the Sawmill and I have watched eight millimeter film of road construction in the 1930s, when prison labor carved the first auto-ready assault along what would later be named the "General Hitchcock Highway." My ex-wife had a grandfather who supervised prisoners and wielded an impressive film camera. I loved the grainy, jerky, Mike Mulligan machines and the forgotten souls who drove them up and into the mountains. I hope somebody still has those films.

The Ponderosa had an old-fashioned ice cream counter with round stools, a fireplace with huge blazing logs, and the best hot chocolate and cheeseburgers this side of Mars. It was the kind of place that elbowed its way into your Stand By Me memory bank, right up there with soldier games, forts, campfire confessions, the first "capital K" kiss, and the first time you didn’t care that your clothes were soaked in public. Mt. Lemmon was a fall down, carousing place for the young, a romantic escape for the less young, and a gift for everybody. Mt. Lemmon was time frozen, except for one frightening omen: the Ponderosa burned. You could still see its footprint with weeds and grasses in the cracks.

But there was always the mountain, a miracle garden one hour away and a mile above the desert. There was the Mint Spring Trail, where Kris and I left one of our metal cups for others to use. Jay Zucker and I climbed an icy tower in the middle of the night on Mt. Bigelow, adjusting a translator antenna for optimum coverage. I remember camping at Spencer Canyon with Kris, in the days before Meg came along. I remember cruising the narrow mountain road at night with my best high school buddy. One afternoon, along a stretch of the Butterfly Trail, my dog and I were tracked by a bear. I regret that I never located the plane crash site. I regret that I never hiked all the way to Sabino Canyon. I wish I had bought one more stick of incense, one more CD, one more wind chime from the Living Rainbow. I want another pie, a few more moments in the Alpine Lodge, one more walk along the gentle creek the way it used to be, always should be, won’t be again. I want one more day, one more night, one more dawn in our family cabin on Tempe Avenue. Poor, doomed Tempe Avenue.

The Apostles of Defiance, Summerhaven denizens like Bob Zimmerman, Mike Stanley, and Ross Quigley, bravely and cautiously talk about reconstruction. If anybody can rebuild, the mountain people of Lemmon Rock can and will. They are already talking about how to do it. As the dialogue progresses, the following issues are likely to come up:

Not everything can be rebuilt at once. Hundreds of structures were lost, and it could take three or four years to replace them all if contracts were let next week. The County should establish priorities for building permits. Public safety facilities should have the highest priority. Rebuild the water system, the power grid, and the sewage treatment capability first. The second level of priority should be the owner-residents. If they lost their homes, it seems only fair that they are able to rebuild after basic utilities are established and the area can be safely reoccupied..

Summerhaven was laid out as a subdivision in the 1940s and it is horribly planned. Jay and I tried to use a plat map of Summerhaven to convince the FCC that there was a large enough community to justify award of an FM radio license. (The FCC is still laughing about that.) It looked that way, with narrow lots crowded into each other as though somebody contemplated a brownstone development. It is horribly inappropriate for the Catalinas. Wooden cabins were barely ten or fifteen yards apart in some locations.

Fortunately, there might be a possibility of resubdivision and better planning. Many of the lots in the Summerhaven subdivision are owned by the state and federal governments. That creates the possibility of land swaps and land banks and other techniques that can result in a more reasonably planned community. Many owners of vacant lots might be willing to sell their properties, rather than wait for the forest to grow back to restore the value their investment. A number of speculators are likely to bail out. Not everybody will return.

The federal government should explore deeding land in fee simple to owners of cabins on leased property in Willow Canyon, Sykes Knob, and Soldiers Camp. The County is taking a hit on property taxes and this will help mitigate the impact. Besides paying property taxes, owners are inclined to improve property, which raises it value, which generates more property tax.

Many trees survived, but much former forest acreage is a gray wasteland. Aspen trees, ironically, will probably cover much of the mountain range for several decades, followed by a likely return of the Ponderosa forest. I hope my great grandchildren enjoy it. In the meantime, we have to make a livable environment out of what we have left. One simple concept: you can’t rebuild a forest in a year or two, but you can build parks and meadows. It would be nice to see a dog chase a Frisbee without ducking trees like the flying bikes in Return of the Jedi.

The new community is likely be less funky and more suburban in aspect. Rough cut roads and thick stands of trees will be replaced by grasses, pavement, curbs, and retaining walls, all in the name of erosion prevention and runoff control. There’s no option. Ma Nature’s going to have some problems with controlling runoff by herself.

It’s also time to revisit this nonsense about the unavailable million dollars to cure a perimeter around the community. Seems like four or five million to fight the fire was available. That, plus hundreds of millions lost in property and commercial activity, suggests that withholding the million dollars was the epitome of false economy.

We need a construction warehouse on the mountain and we will need it soon. No, I haven’t lost my mind. If most fire victims rebuild, there will be the equivalent of a large subdivision going in up there. That’s a lot of materials needed in an already active construction market. Mt. Lemmon property owners are going to be at a disadvantage if they have to rely on the traditional suppliers for their materials. (Can you say, "Home Depot?") Donors have already provided a generator to help restart the water system and there is word of a portable sawmill being set up to recycle lumber. That’s a good start.

A consortium of contractors and suppliers could build a large structure on the mountain, probably an ugly metal hulk, that can be used to warehouse building supplies. Using a "just in time" approach with massive trucks ferrying materials from in-town suppliers would be a logistical nightmare and a safety hazard. Better to take as much up as possible, perhaps with the help of helicopters. Set up a local "Lowe’s Depot" for a couple of years. Then, when the rebuilding is nearing completion and the warehouse is no longer needed, convert it into a community center. Add bleachers, maybe basketball courts, possibly a stage. Mt. Lemmon has always needed a community center. It would be nice to see one literally rise from the ashes. The ugliness should not be a problem: Summerhaven has always been an artists’ community.

There are likely to be a number of construction workers putting in time on the mountain and not all of them will be local. Itinerant mountain carpenters may show up. I’ve known a few of that breed, and they could be useful. However, they need a place to stay. Another early priority should be to build housing, perhaps a dorm, for construction workers, as well as landowners who drop up to check on the progress of their reconstruction. Later on, the dorm could be converted into a lodge. That might be a way to get Don Underhill and the Alpine on the fast track back. Worth a thought.

Perhaps most importantly, the County needs to look at creating a new zoning category for the mountain environment, with parallel building codes and lot requirements that reflect the need to be firewise in a potentially dangerous setting. No major carrier is going to insure property up there without such a change. Fortunately, Pima County shows signs of addressing this critically important issue.

I offer these observations and suggestions as just those, nothing more. They are the product of my sitting helplessly in the city, watching the ugly, gray, billowing assassin murder the mountain and offend the sky, unable to do anything about it except think of what might be.

(c) July 1, 2003 by Mike Tully

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