Leonard Canyon

Leonard Canyon covers 3,071 acres on the southern margin of the Colorado Plateau in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, Coconino and Navajo counties, Arizona. The terrain is mountainous and montane, cut by Leonard Canyon, Wilkins Canyon, and Willow Creek Canyon as they fall toward Clear Creek and East Clear Creek; Red Hill rises between the drainages. The major Echinique Draw–Clear Creek headwaters feed the broader Clear Creek system, with Crossroad Tank, Rock Trick Tank, Red Hill Tank, Bennet Tank, Soldier Trail Tank, and Maverick Tank holding stock water on the upland benches.

Vegetation stacks across elevation, aspect, and canyon position. The high benches above the canyons carry Southern Rockies Ponderosa Pine Woodland and Southern Rockies Ponderosa Pine Savanna, with cooler north-facing exposures rising into Southern Rockies Mixed Conifer Forest and Sky Island High Mountain Conifer-Oak Forest. Rocky Mountain Gambel Oak Shrubland and Sky Island Oak Woodland occupy the canyon rims and warmer high slopes. Mid-elevation benches and slopes carry Colorado Plateau Pinyon-Juniper Woodland, Colorado Plateau Pinyon-Juniper Shrubland, Sky Island Juniper Savanna, and Intermountain Juniper Savanna. Lower hot exposures hold Arizona Plateau Chaparral, Rocky Mountain Foothill Shrubland, Great Basin Big Sagebrush Shrubland, and Intermountain Salt Desert Scrub. Open ground gives way to Intermountain Semi-Desert Grassland, Intermountain Semi-Desert Shrub-Steppe, and Northern Rockies Subalpine Grassland on higher benches. Along the perennial reaches of Leonard Canyon and Willow Creek, Rocky Mountain Foothill Streamside Woodland traces the channel.

This vertical structure creates a continuous gradient of habitats. Spruce-fir-mixed-conifer canopy on the highest benches gives way down-canyon to ponderosa pine, then oak-pine and gambel oak shrubland, then pinyon-juniper, then chaparral and grassland. Streamside woodland along the perennial canyon reaches holds shade and moisture year-round, supporting cool-water aquatic and riparian communities tied to the Clear Creek system; the surrounding meadows and grasslands provide forage and edge habitat where canopy gives way to open ground. The unfragmented canopy across the area allows free movement among community types. Portions of this area fall within the potential range of several federally listed species; see the Conservation section for details.

Moving down off Red Hill into Leonard Canyon, a visitor crosses from ponderosa pine onto an oak-pine slope, then drops into a narrowing canyon where the air cools and gambel oak gives way to streamside woodland along Clear Creek. Pools form between sandstone walls; the creek runs over gravel beds and disappears into shadow where the canyon tightens. Climbing back to the rim of Wilkins Canyon, the view opens across the parallel Willow Creek drainage toward the broader Mogollon Plateau, with juniper savanna spreading on the bench and the canyon shadow falling east.

Leonard Canyon is a 3,071-acre Inventoried Roadless Area within the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests in Coconino and Navajo counties, Arizona. The area is managed within the Black Mesa Ranger District and lies in the U.S. Forest Service's Southwestern Region, draining the Echinique Draw–Clear Creek headwaters into Willow Creek, Clear Creek, and East Clear Creek along the southern margin of the Colorado Plateau. The area is protected under the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule.

Five American Indian tribes represented by nine separate tribal governments have traditional ties to lands within the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests: Western Apache, Zuni, Hopi, Navajo, and Yavapai [1]. Crossing the Mogollon Rim near this area was the Palatkwapi Trail, a prehistoric route used by the Hopi of northern Arizona when venturing west to trade with the Yavapai of the Verde Valley [2]. When Spanish explorer Antonio de Espéjo arrived in the land of the Hopi in 1583, a party of Hopis led Espéjo and his party west along the Palatkwapi Trail [2].

The open country across the Mogollon Rim has a long history of ranching, likely beginning with Navajo sheep herders in the 18th century [2]. Homesteaders and ranchers infiltrated the area during the latter half of the 19th century, leaving their mark in the form of cabins, livestock tanks, canals, and a cluster of artificial lakes that remain today [2]. The Mogollon Rim is home to the world's largest stand of ponderosa pines [2]. Commercial timber and fuel-wood harvesting has occurred across the forests since the late 1870s, and by 1917 the commercial logging industry was established on the forests [1]. During the 1920s an extensive network of logging railroads was constructed on the forests, primarily on the Sitgreaves side [1]. By 1939 roads had replaced most of the railroads to transport timber [1].

Federal protection of the lands surrounding Leonard Canyon began in 1898. The Black Mesa Forest Reserve had its birth on August 17, 1898, when the Executive Proclamation of President William McKinley withdrew 1,658,880 acres from settlement and disposition under the public-land laws [3]. President McKinley's Proclamation 423 reserved lands in the Territory of Arizona that were in part covered with timber, declaring that the public good would be promoted by setting them apart as public reservations [4]. On July 1, 1908, the Black Mesa National Forest was divided among the Sitgreaves, Tonto, Apache, and Coconino National Forests. The Apache and Sitgreaves National Forests were administratively combined in 1974 as the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests. Leonard Canyon today lies in the southern Sitgreaves portion of the combined forest, in the same ponderosa-pine and mixed-conifer landscape that timber railroads transformed a century ago, and that the roadless rule now preserves above the East Clear Creek headwaters.

Vital Resources Protected

• Clear Creek Headwater Protection: Leonard Canyon's 3,071 roadless acres include the Echinique Draw–Clear Creek headwaters and tributary Willow Creek as they fall toward Clear Creek and East Clear Creek. The watershed carries a major hydrological significance rating. Keeping the steep canyon walls and rim benches uncut allows precipitation to infiltrate the soil, recharge shallow aquifers, and emerge as low-sediment baseflow in the perennial reaches of Leonard, Wilkins, and Willow Creek canyons. This headwater integrity sustains cool pool habitat downstream.

• Continuous Ponderosa Pine and Mixed-Conifer Canopy: Southern Rockies Ponderosa Pine Woodland covers about 28 percent of the area, with Southern Rockies Mixed Conifer Forest and Sky Island High Mountain Conifer-Oak Forest on cooler exposures and Colorado Plateau Pinyon-Juniper Woodland on the warmer benches. The roadless condition preserves continuous canopy across Red Hill and the rims of Leonard and Wilkins canyons, allowing canopy-dependent wildlife to move across the upper rim and limiting the edge habitat that fire suppression has already pushed into many regional pine stands.

• Riparian Function in Canyon-Bottom Streamside Woodland: Rocky Mountain Foothill Streamside Woodland traces the perennial reaches of Leonard Canyon, Willow Creek Canyon, and the Clear Creek system. These narrow streamside corridors shade pools, trap sediment from upslope runoff, and provide structural habitat for riparian and aquatic species. Connecting the headwater meadows to the lower canyon reaches lets sediment, woody debris, and nutrients move at natural rates—a function that NatureServe assessments identify as widely disrupted in similar Plateau streamside systems by road development and groundwater pumping.

Potential Effects of Road Construction

• Sedimentation and Soil Loss into Clear Creek Drainages: Road construction across the steep canyon walls of Leonard, Wilkins, and Willow Creek canyons would expose mineral soil on cut and fill faces. Surface runoff would deliver fine sediment directly into the Clear Creek system, smothering pool substrates and degrading water quality in a watershed where threat assessments already flag soil loss and erosion from road and logging disturbance. Because cut slopes continue to shed material for years after construction, the sediment loading is chronic.

• Canopy Fragmentation and Altered Fire Regime in Ponderosa Pine: A road corridor cut through Southern Rockies Ponderosa Pine Woodland and Colorado Plateau Pinyon-Juniper Woodland creates a hard linear opening in canopy that is already vulnerable to altered fire dynamics from a century of suppression. The open road surface and adjacent disturbed shoulder change microclimate, raise surface temperatures, and add a new ignition vector along the corridor. Restoring continuous canopy after roading requires decades of slow conifer regeneration and active fuels management.

• Invasive Species and Fuel Loading Along New Corridors: Construction equipment and the bare, regularly disturbed surface of a new road act as a vector and seedbed for non-native annual grasses such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) that NatureServe assessments identify as a documented threat to pinyon-juniper, gambel oak shrubland, sagebrush shrubland, and chaparral on the Plateau. Once established, cheatgrass and similar annuals increase fine-fuel loads, shorten fire-return intervals, and reshape plant communities. The combination is difficult to reverse because each disturbance event reseeds the invasive community.

Leonard Canyon covers 3,071 acres on the southern Colorado Plateau in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests' Black Mesa Ranger District, Coconino and Navajo counties. Three short maintained trails cross the area: the Cross Road Trail (No. 45), 1.9 miles of native-surface tread open to hikers; the Soldiers Crossing Trail (No. 21), 0.4 miles open to horse; and the Red Hill Trail (No. 105), 0.5 miles open to hikers. There are no designated trailheads listed within the area boundary and no developed campgrounds; access comes from the surrounding Forest road network, and backcountry camping is dispersed.

Foot and stock travel here follows the rim country into Leonard, Wilkins, and Willow Creek canyons. Routes from Red Hill drop through ponderosa pine and gambel oak into shaded canyon bottoms that hold pools and gravel reaches of the Clear Creek system. Visitors should expect rugged ground, loose rock on canyon walls, and limited water on the ridges between the stock tanks at Crossroad, Rock Trick, Red Hill, Bennet, Soldier Trail, and Maverick.

Hunting in and around Leonard Canyon follows Arizona Game and Fish Department regulations for the units that include the Mogollon Plateau and the Black Mesa Ranger District. The ponderosa pine, mixed-conifer, oak-pine, pinyon-juniper, and gambel oak mosaic supports general hunts; hunters should verify current AZGFD seasons and unit boundaries before entering.

Birding around Leonard Canyon is sparsely documented but tied to the larger Rim country avifauna. Two eBird hotspots fall within 24 km of the area: Chevelon Crossing (114 species, 70 checklists) and C.C. Cragin (Blue Ridge) Reservoir (98 species, 58 checklists). Both record riparian and forest-edge species typical of the Mogollon Plateau, and within Leonard Canyon's pine-oak and streamside corridors a visitor can expect ponderosa-pine canopy species and riparian birds along the perennial reaches.

Clear Creek and East Clear Creek hold cool-water habitat in their perennial reaches, with rainbow trout stocked in nearby reservoir reaches. Fishing within Leonard Canyon itself is informal and subject to Arizona Game and Fish regulations. Photographers find views from Red Hill across Leonard and Wilkins canyons, with the Mogollon Rim country falling south toward the Tonto Basin.

Because there are no Forest roads inside Leonard Canyon, every activity—the Cross Road Trail along the rim, the Red Hill descent toward Clear Creek, the Soldiers Crossing stock route, birding the streamside corridor, hunting the upper benches—depends on a foot or stock approach from the surrounding road network. A road corridor would shorten walk-in distance but would fragment the ponderosa-conifer canopy across the rim, add sediment and noise to Clear Creek and its tributaries, and remove the backcountry character that distinguishes Leonard Canyon from the surrounding Forest road grid.