
The Voice of Jack Smith Spring, Coconino National Forest, February 2012
When I was snowshoeing around the Inner Basin the other day I stopped near Jack Smith spring to record some audio of a small stream gurgling and splashing its way through rocks and ice. I placed my recorder down in the channel on a small telescoping tripod mere inches above the water. Between jet intrusions the recorder's stereo microphones captured the stream's polyphonic voice as it bubbled and babbled its age-old story of slumbering mountain peaks and deep winter snows. I stood nearby trying not to shiver in the lingering cold, thinking about the water slowly percolating its way through porous lava rock and forest detritus, imagining the subterranean wonders it might've seen on its journey from the snowfields above.
Below is (hopefully) an embedded MP3 player so you can hear a four minute segment of the flowing water. A downloadable 6MB MP3 file is also available if you want to listen to it on your ipod or other audio device. If you listen closely through headphones you can hear at least two layers of gurgling and splashing cycling back and forth, the harmonics merging and stacking atop one another in complex ways. It's kind of relaxing and helps one to understand how dynamic and active free flowing water can be.
The Voice of Jack Smith Spring
If you've ever hiked the Inner Basin of the San Francisco Peaks you probably know the place I was standing: it's where the Inner Basin trail meets the waterline road, a mile or so above Lockett Meadow. Tucked into the trees there are several green sheds and an outhouse toilet that used to be full of shy black widow spiders that would watch nervously from the gloomy corners while you did your business. The buildings are presumably associated with the extensive water wells and pipelines that slurp water out of the Inner Basin watershed and funnel it 17 miles down the mountain into the Flagstaff water system. I won't go into what happens to it after that, although it would appear that some of it may soon be finding its way back up the mountain - albeit a little worse for wear - and sprayed out as artificial snow at the Arizona Snowbowl.

Icy Stream, Coconino National Forest, February 2012
According to my topo map Jack Smith spring is actually a few hundred yards up the drainage from where I recorded the audio. The gurgling and splashing water you hear in the MP3 issues from a large diameter pipe that comes down the hill out of the woods and is likely carrying water from the spring to the cluster of buildings. Although it's possible that it's just some other unnamed spring that the Forest Service wanted left free-flowing for hikers and wildlife to use. I'll go out on a limb and say the water comes from Jack Smith spring, but it doesn't really matter: most of the springs up there are imprisoned inside concrete spring boxes and metal pipe and everything mingles together these days.
Jack Smith spring has a somewhat interesting history, which I'll probably post about in a few days.