A popular guide to the natural and human history of a verdant canyon at the edge of the desert outside Tucson, Arizona. Many fine color plates and lucid drawings.

Nestled in the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Arizona, Sabino Canyon demonstrates the beauty and resiliency of life in what many would assume to be a most inhospitable place. For thousands of visitors each year, this oasis in the Sonoran Desert offers the opportunity to experience biodiversity in action. David Lazaroff has called on years of studying, photographing, and educating people about Sabino Canyon to produce this clearly written and beautifully illustrated book. Focusing on the importance of Sabino Creek both to plants and animals and to human recreation, he tracks the ebb and flow of canyon life through the year and tells how people have sought to utilize the canyon through history. First-time visitors to Sabino Canyon will find their experience enriched through Lazaroff's insights into plants, animals, and geology, while those who regularly frequent Sabino's trails or pools can become better informed about its fragile desert and riparian habitats. For anyone curious about life in a genuine Southwestern oasis, this book captures the beauty and uniqueness of a natural treasure-house located in a bustling city's back yard.

Even in paradise, one needs to be mindful of whatÕs underfoot. The Sabino Canyon Recreation Area is a desert oasis in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, a rich repository of wildlife and a favorite destination for Tucsonans and visitors for more than a century. This book presents annotated and illustrated descriptions of the amphibians and reptiles found at Sabino Canyon and an overview of their natural environment. Representing a study spanning nearly twenty-five years, it documents their present and past distribution and examines environmental and herpetofaunal change due to physical, biological, and human impact on species and habitats. In this first publication to describe Sabino CanyonÕs biota in scientific detail, three expert authors pool their knowledge to provide a detailed discussion of ecological changeÑespecially as a consequence of drought, flooding, the introduction of exotic species, and direct human impact. Suburbia has arrived on the canyonÕs doorstep, and human visitation has soared, inalterably affecting the area. Of particular concern, breeding habitats for amphibians were profoundly altered by flash flooding in SabinoÕs streams following the 2003 Aspen Fire, which ravaged large parts of the Santa Catalina Mountains. The book contains richly detailed accounts of the 57 species found at SabinoÑ25 snakes, 17 lizards, 8 toads and frogs, 6 turtles, and 1 salamanderÑemphasizing their local ecology and the behavior likely to be witnessed by visitors. Physical descriptions and numerous photographsÑmany in colorÑfacilitate identification. Up-to-date distribution maps provide an essential baseline against which future researchers can measure change. Amphibians, Reptiles, and Their Habitats at Sabino Canyon is essential for anyone who seeks to understand this desert oasis, how it has changed, and how it may change in the future. Written with minimal technical jargon to make it as useful to students and visitors as it will be to scientists and resource managers, it makes a vital contribution to our understanding of creatures underfoot whose habitat we seek to share.

This history of Sabino Canyon shows like never before why this mountain canyon near Tucson, Arizona, is such a beloved place. With more than two hundred images and engaging text, David Wentworth Lazaroff relays relates a hundred years of history, revealing how the canyon changed from a little-known oasis into an immensely popular recreation area on the edge of a modern metropolis.

This beautifully illustrated guide provides a geologist¿ s eye view into the geologic setting and history of the Santa Catalina Mountains. With this text in hand, the reader will peer into the window that Sabino Canyon offers into the core of the Santa Catalina Mountains. Photographs of granite, gneiss, schist and other rocks will enrich your visit. A simplified geologic map places the geology in context, while block diagrams and cross-sections illustrate how the mountains formed and how major faults, complemented by weathering and erosion, shape and sculpt the range. For those ascending Catalina Highway to the summit of Mt. Lemmon, this guide points out major geographic features, roadsite rock outcrops, and discusses how geologic processes, still operating today, shape and reshape the mountain¿s flanks and summit.