January 2014.
Waddell, Arizona.

Note: We are traveling again with limited Internet access. Feel free to comment, but I may be slow to respond.

For over a decade, Lynn and I spent winters in a house in Buckeye, Arizona. We became avid hikers and enjoyed spending many miles hiking in the Estrella and White Tank Mountains, both within a 30-minute drive. Our favorite park became the White Tank Mountains Regional Park. The range gets its name from the “Tinajas Blancas,” the deep natural depressions in the white granite that collect and hold rainwater. Historically, these tanks were vital for survival in the desert, but they are completely dependent on the weather—during a dry summer, a natural tank can dry up completely. There was a time when the area was inhabited by the indigenous people, the Hohokam—”those who have gone”—who disappeared several centuries ago, leaving only petroglyphs as a trace of their existence.

One of the park’s more popular trails is the Waterfall Trail, which leads to a natural waterfall and a typical tinaja. But its water source depends on the rains in the world’s wettest desert. It’s always had water in the tank when we’ve visited, but we’ve never been there in summer when the tank is only bare rock. When in the park, we often bypassed this trail and took other trails that led higher up and further into the canyons. On the trail map, the 0.2-mile (0.3 km) Wildlife Trail leads to the pond shown in the opening photo. For local wildlife, it’s a life-giving resource. Nearby, a 1930s-era windmill still stands, indicating that before this area was a park, this lowland water source sustained cattle or other farm animals. Today, it is a “watering hole” for wildlife—javelina, mule deer, and other residents.

Stepping back and to the right reveals the secret behind why this water source doesn’t dry up in the heat of the summer. Behind that tree, there seems to be a small structure. Looking more closely, modern solar panels face south, aligned with the solar arc across the sky. It turns out the oasis uses a modern submersible pump powered by solar panels, hidden away to provide a year-round water supply for the local wildlife.

It’s a clever setup. We usually think of conservation as leaving nature completely alone, but here, a little human intervention is what keeps the habitat working. That little pump house is doing the work the “Tinajas Blancas” simply can’t do during a drought. It shows how modern tools can support the natural world, creating a dependable water source for animals when natural tanks fail.

About the photos: Captured in 2014, these were shot with a Nikon D7000 and a Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 lens. For this post, I reprocessed the photos from the original RAW files using modern processing tools. Adobe Lightroom Classic’s workflow was simple—Denoise, Upright Perspective, and Adaptive Color Profile. Then, to Luminar Neo for a touch of Accent AI. The gallery is available in 2K HD with metadata on my Flickr site here.

John Steiner.