Friends of Cave Creek Canyon (FOCCC)

06/01/2026

Winn Falls (or Sally Falls, its original name; Sally Coryell was a local cook and phone operator), has a total drop of approximately 365 feet, making it one of the longest and tallest waterfalls in Arizona. It freezes in winter as it's usually in shadow all day though there's sometimes a small trickle remaining which you can barely make in the second photo. Here are two views of the falls, both taken from Winn Falls Overlook along the Greenhouse Trail. The first shows the falls in March, the second in January, both in 2023. BTW the "Winn" comes from Frederick Winn, a former Forest supervisor for the Coronado National Forest.

05/29/2026

One of our beautiful, small town autumnal scenes at "downtown" Portal with the post office and Myrtle Kraft library, both of which used to be part of the one-room schoolhouse, and the venerable Arizona sycamore. Portal and Cave Creek Canyon are year-round destinations. Photo by Steve Wolfe.

05/26/2026

The 2026 annual Garden Party, held on Saturday May 23rd at the Cave Creek Visitor Information Center, was a smashing success! The community turned out to enjoy the exhibits, conversations, and hands on activities provided by over 20 local organizations. From local history to children making their favorite canyon critter to guests looking through a solar telescope, handling live snakes, taking selfies with Smokey Bear, and enjoying great music from local musicians and Donna’s delicious food, everyone had a great time. Thank you Cecil Williams for another fabulous gathering in the canyon! Thank you to everyone who participated!

05/25/2026

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05/25/2026

05/22/2026

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the Willow Tank Go Fund Me and to Peg Abbott for managing the effort. We far exceeded our goal of $6500, raising a total of $10,770. Though some funds came from afar, the incredibly strong local response reflects how deeply our community values this important wildlife area. Thank you.

The funds will ensure that Willow Tank will thrive for many years to come and that migrating and resident birds (258 species according to eBird) will have access to this important water source. It also ensures that future generations of naturalists will be able to appreciate the biodiversity that Willow Tank supports.

In celebration of Willow Tank, the Friends of Cave Creek Canyon Nature Journaling Group spent last Sunday morning there, capturing the wind, water, birds, flowers, bulrushes and emergent leaves with their insect galls. How very fortunate we are to have this oasis in our community. If you haven’t been recently, please pay Willow Tank a visit soon!

05/21/2026

Summer visitors and residents...Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, male Varied Bunting, and a female Gambel's Quail with a chick. The first two photos are by Bob Rodrigues and the third by Steve Wolfe, used with their permission.

05/18/2026

The San Simon Elementary School first and second grade class and the Apache Elementary School made their final visit to Cave Creek Canyon on Wednesday, May 13, 2026. And we saved the best topic for last: Insects & Plant-Insect Interactions!
The morning started with each student creating a sound scape of the canyon, sitting quietly for 10 minutes and listening. They then pair-shared their notebooks with a buddy, talking about what they experienced. Pretty cute to watch.
Transitioning to the topic of the day, Insects, we reviewed what they already knew. The young scientists knew quite a lot about what made an insect, an insect. They could also name a wide variety of insects, which was a great start. Before looking for insects in nature, we focused on some often-confused groups of insects: bees and flies, and beetles and true bugs. Making drawings from specimens helped but the take home messages, often repeated the rest of the day, were that big eyes and short antennae usually meant a fly and a straight line down the back indicated a beetle whereas a true bug sports a triangle on its back.
Armed with this knowledge and a small viewing container, the students went forth and explored plants and flowers around the VIC. The number of pollinators on the flowers was impressive. They tallied the number of each type of insect encountered: butterflies, bees/ants /wasps, flies, beetles, true bugs and grasshoppers/crickets/katydids. They found and got close views of some very cool insects. They also got very good at distinguishing true bugs from beetles!
During lunch, our guest scientist was Ray Mendez who delighted one student by identifying the soldier carpenter ant that she had found. Ray brought a colony of honey-pot ants as well as a desert termite colony to share. The young scientists were fascinated; a few future entomologists stood out, marked by their eagerness to hold the queen termite!
We found a hatched praying mantis egg case in a tree, a pupal case that a moth eclosed from in a dried nightshade fruit as well as some aphid galls in a nearby cottonwood tree. These “props” set the stage for more story telling about the natural history and interactions of plants and insects.
As a departing thank you to the students for their time and enthusiastic exploration of biodiversity in the canyon this school year, each student received a tiny palette of watercolors and a water brush. I hope that they could continue to grow their nature observations and journaling over the summer. I cannot wait for these young scientists to return next fall.

05/16/2026

One of our 2025 Teachers in the Wild, Joni Giacomino and her Bisbee High School students (Biology 182 Cochise Community College dual enrollment course), visited Cave Creek Canyon on Monday May 11, 2026. Welcome back Joni and thank you for bringing your students!

These curious and engaged students readily took to making observations and generating questions. Together we explored the geology and biodiversity of the canyon, starting with a visual comparison of Limestone Mountain and the rhyolite cliffs of Cave Creek Canyon and representative rocks from each location. Having established the slow sedimentary deposition and later uplifting of Limestone Mountain and the violent volcanic origin of Cave Creek Canyon formations, we moved onto conducting bird inventories, making quick sketches and noting characteristics of birds at two local feeders. First, of course, students had a quick lesson on how to properly use binoculars.
Returning to the Visitor’s Information Center, we explored mammal diversity through skulls and wildlife camera data, comparing a week’s worth of photos from Hilltop and Cave Creek Ranch. We ended the visit looking at plant-insect interactions, from bee diversity to pollination and nectar robbing to aphid galls on cottonwood trees. The time flew by and before we knew it, the students were getting back on the bus to head home. It was a perfect day in the canyon!

05/16/2026

Spring is one of the most beautiful times of year in Cave Creek Canyon, and Friends of Cave Creek Canyon want to see YOU in the canyon.
The Friends of Cave Creek Canyon Garden Party is happening on Saturday, May 23rd from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Cave Creek Visitor Information Center. Come join the fun!

Whether you’re a longtime local, seasonal visitor, or simply curious about everything that makes Cave Creek Canyon special, we hope you’ll stop by and say hello. Bring a friend and enjoy a fun morning with the community.