Sometimes, I Get That Sinking Feeling!

"A thundering boom resonated and a great reddish-brown column of dust billowed skyward. A haze thick enough to blot the sun filled the sky and hovered over the Oak Creek area for more than a day." It was in the late 1880s when the Devil's Kitchen sinkhole formed, opening a cavernous void in the Earth that extended 50' downward and more than 100' across. Only a few dozen residents living in the area witnessed the creation of the area's largest sinkhole. Like other sinkholes, this one formed when a subsurface void was created from minerals that dissolved & washed away by the action of a subterranean stream. There are signs that warn not to venture too close to the void, since the ground at the edge is unstable, as evidenced by nearby cracks. Its edges are decorated with manzanita & sugarbush and there's an Arizona Cypress that has taken root among the rocky debris in its center. (Photo taken looking SE across the sinkhole on March 11, 2009, with the tree-covered- NOT SNOW-COVERED -Mogollon Rim in the distance.)