Thursday we decided to do our day trip to the Chiricahua National Monument which is located in the northwest corner of the Chiricahua Mountains in extreme SE corner of Arizona. It’s called the “Wonderland of Rocks” and for good reason. If you have been along I-10 in Southern Arizona you know that the high desert is arid, wide open, and punctuated with low mountain ranges that form broad valleys filled with low bushes, scrub mesquite and lots of cacti and yucca plants. That’s in your mind’s eye when you think of southern Arizona. But the Chiricahuas hold a very different vision… The route to the Chiricahuas is south from I-10 at Willcox, taking Highway 186 through one of those very broad shallow valleys…the road stretches south in front of you as you pass Dos Cabezas Mountains to the east and a small town of the same name... “Dos Cabezas” (two heads) being a formation at the peak of the so-named mountains… Just about the time we decide this is too far to go and the map must be wrong…the terrain begins to change…scrub oak, fewer cactus and a turn east toward the Chiricahua Mountains, which rise to more than 9700 feet…and there is snow in them thar hills! Soon we are headed up a narrow canyon with ever-thickening scrub oak, winding road, growing more narrow. We come to the ranger station at the entrance to the Monument…nobody there, but a sign saying you can pay on the way out. A little further up the road, and now completely in the woods… (what happened to the desert?)…is the visitor’s center. We stop, go in to check it out, get a map or two and get a sense of where we are headed…back into the truck and away we go. The rangers and signage are quick to point out that RVs and trailers over 29’ are not allowed beyond the visitor’s center… you are asked to unhitch your trailers or towed vehicles at one of two parking lots/picnic areas near the entrance, and drive your towed vehicle (or your towing vehicle) on the scenic route. Why? The campground and scenic drive road were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930’s. It’s a narrow winding road, and there are overhanging trees and rocks, with limited pull-offs and parking once on the drive. It is also a dead-end with a narrow turn-around loop at the summit. First stop is the Bonita Creek Campground, which has 22 first-come first-served sites. Kinda cramped with lots of low-hanging branches and two steep concrete creek crossings…anything longer than 29’ is bound to scrap bottom, and we are not sure we’d even want to take our 19’ Bambi in there. The trailer might fit in most of the sites, but there were do you park the truck? Not lots of maneuvering room, either. It’s best suited for tent camping, for sure. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of other camping options nearby...perhaps some dispersed camping (boon docking) outside the monument, but no other developed campgrounds for miles. So we were glad we decided not to drag the Bambi here in an attempt to get a camping spot. There are no hookups and the woods are so thick that we doubt our solar panel would yield much juice, either. (We did pick up some boon docking info at the visitor’s center if anyone would like that.) We left the campground and headed up the scenic drive…there is a thick canopy of trees…most scrub oak and a few pines sprinkled in…and suddenly through the canopy we begin to see stark rock formations towering above the trees. It’s pretty wild. It’s hard to believe we are in Arizona. As the road climbs the scrub gives way to full-blown pine trees and we see more and more fantastic formations on all sides above us. We round one corner and suddenly, we see how high we have climbed as we look down over forested mountains looking east into New Mexico… There is a side road to a hiking trailhead, and at the end of the scenic drive is Masaai Point (elecvation 6,870 feet) where you can park and take an easy trail and view the views down the western side of the mountains with distant ranges on the horizon. The pillars of stone, balanced rocks and otherworldly shapes, eroded by eons of time rising up above the trees are in all directions. It’s really something to behold. Again… is this Arizona?? The loop at the top has another visitor’s center, an observation tower, and places to enjoy the beauty over a picnic… We took the Girls for a walk around the loop and to say hello to the tourists…they are such hams. Fortunately, they are not threatening and most folks think they are cuties (which they are, of course). There’s so much to see there, that like the Rattlesnake Crafts we’d seen a few days earlier, it would take hours to really do the place justice with a camera. We went a little nuts with the camera. We were glad we’d taken the time to visit the Chiricahuas…now there’s just one more place in this area we’d be interested to visit…that’s the Portal, AZ, area on the east side of the Chiricahuas. Our friend Chan camped there for a week or so earlier this year and he loved the quietness, dark night skies and solitude. It really sounds like one of the quietest places to go one can imagine. There are two ways you can get there (on paved roads)…one is to go east on I-10 to Highway 80 just west of Lordsburg, NM, and go south on 80 along the Arizona/New Mexico border. The other is to go to Douglas, AZ, from the northwest and go around the southern end of the Chiricahua and Pedregrosa Mountains on Highway 80 north to the Portal area. There’s not much out there by either route, so be sure to have plenty of gas, water and supplies. Talk about being on the fringe of anything. Paramore Crater is out there…wonder what that is like? Hmmm. Maybe we should go see? Back to the big open valley west and north of the Chiricahuas and the ride back through Dos Cabezas and Willcox and our little Bambi at Roper Lake State Park. A good day was had by all. Click on the “Slide Show” below to see pictures of this segment, or you can click on any one of the other segments of this trip... click on “Other Trips” to take you to our main trip page. What a nice day. http://www.nps.gov/chir/shapeimage_7_link_0
>Ghost Townsmeander_ghost_feb08.htmlmeander_ghost_feb08.htmlshapeimage_8_link_0
>To Ropermeander_rop_feb08.htmlmeander_rop_feb08.htmlshapeimage_9_link_0
>Kartchnermeander_kartch_feb08.htmlmeander_kartch_feb08.htmlshapeimage_10_link_0
>Day of Restmeander_roprest_feb08.htmlmeander_roprest_feb08.htmlshapeimage_11_link_0
>Intromeander_feb08_intro.htmlmeander_feb08_intro.htmlshapeimage_12_link_0
>Criminalmeander_crim_feb08.htmlmeander_crim_feb08.htmlshapeimage_13_link_0
>Day Two?meander_day2_feb08.htmlmeander_day2_feb08.htmlshapeimage_14_link_0
>Other Tripstrips.htmltrips.htmltrips.htmlshapeimage_15_link_0shapeimage_15_link_1