San Francisco Peaks

The San Francisco Peaks are the remains of a single collapsed volcano rising over the Coconino National Forest north of Flagstaff, with Humphreys Peak, Arizona's high point at 12,633 feet, at their center. They are sacred to the tribes that surround them, and the Forest itself maintains a list of the range's names from eleven tribal nations, among them Dook'o'oosliid for the Navajo, "the summit which never melts", and Nuva'tukya'ovi for the Hopi. Hopi ceremony calendars treat the peaks as the home of the kachina spirits; other tribes hold them as places of prayer and medicine gathering, and the Kachina Peaks Wilderness, established in 1984, protects 18,960 acres of the upper mountain.

The modern conflict is over snow. The Forest Service approved the Arizona Snowbowl ski area's plan to make snow from reclaimed wastewater, tribes challenged it through years of litigation (Navajo Nation v. U.S. Forest Service, decided against the tribes by the D.C. Circuit in 2011), and wastewater snowmaking began with the 2012-13 season. Protest and objection have continued since, through the 2025 season opening, while the ski area has operated and the peaks have remained in ceremonial use. The disagreement is unresolved and this entry takes no side: the mountain is both a recreation destination and an actively sacred place, and both facts are visible in the same view.

Visiting

The Coconino National Forest's Humphreys Trail page carries current conditions for the summit climb from the Snowbowl side, and Arizona Snowbowl covers the ski area and scenic chairlift. Check weather and fire conditions before going; monsoon-afternoon storms are a real hazard on the summit.

Photo: Lockett Meadow in the Inner Basin, [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lockett_Meadow_%2829830270612%29.jpg), public domain, U.S. Forest Service.