Day 25 – 27: CHIRICAHUA NATIONAL MONUMENT, Arizona

Land of Standing Up Rocks.  As you enter Chiricahua NM, you are climbing up a sky island...an isolated mountain range rising above the surrounding grassland area.  It’s rock pinnacles are looming over the road like guardians of the mountain.  The Chiricahua Apache called these pinnacles 'standing up rocks'.  27 million years ago, nearby Turkey Creek Volcano spewed ash over 1,2000 square miles.  These ash particles melted together forming layers of rhyolite.  Cooling created joints and cracks in the rhyolite.  Erosion by water and ice enlarged the cracks.  Weaker material was washed away leaving behind an endless variety of spires, balanced rocks and other shapes.  The sculpting continues today.  Many of these spires have names and at night the come alive and move about....just kidding.

Chiricahua National Monument was established in 1924 to preserve and protect the pinnacles.  In 1934 the Civilian Conservation Corps took on the jobs of improving the road, constructing the trails and many of the structures.  The park is 11,985 acres.  86% of the park is designated as wilderness.

 March 28 – 30.  We stayed at the Bonita Campground within the park for 3 nights.  It is a primitive campground which means no power or water or showers.  There is a nice restroom with flush toilets.  Some parks only have pit toilets. The campground is laid out in the middle of a forest of cypress and pine so there is a lot of shade.  But unfortunately the site are scattered about at weird angles.  No trailer over 28 feet can fit in.  Our trailer is slightly over 26 feet.  It was very difficult to get into our site because of some boulders that lined the entrance.  We ended up running over some of those boulders and scraped and realigned our stairs and pushed our tailpipe against the back tire.  It took several tries to back into that site.  But we made it were able to realign our stairs and tailpipe. 

 Since we are out in the wilderness it is dead quiet at night and you can do a lot of star gazing.  It is peaceful and relaxing.  Unfortunately during the day....the generators are running to charge up the trailer batteries so you can use your lights and other things.  Our neighbor had an old generator that was so loud (imagine a diesel truck engine running full speed right next to you).  That is a major downside to primitive camping.  But during the quiet times, you can enjoy being intimate with nature.

There is one road that goes into the park.  It is an eight mile scenic drive that rises from the grasslands to the summit at Massai Point where you get a a sense of being atop a sky island.  Along the way are many view points with views of spires that were named by the workers who built the road and the trails.  An interesting view is a rocky mountain called Cochise Head.

We spent one day hiking the Echo Canyon Trail.  This trail looped into Hailstone Trail and then Ed Riggs Trail.  This hike was awesome and so very scenic.  It took us right into the middle of a forest of spires and balanced rocks.  The trail is a combination of smooth and level, rocky, climbing over boulders, steep and uneven.  It is a 3.4 mile loop.  But what was supposed to be a 2 to 3 hour hike ended up being a 6 hour hike for us.   It about killed me.  But after getting back to the trailer and relaxing, I felt the hike was worth it.  The scenery and views were so awesome.

Turtle rock and a turtle on a rock. 

 This rock has a cave carved into the side of it and that looks like another turtle rock on top of it.

End of the trail..almost. .9 miles to go.

Our next destination is New Mexico.

Day 22 – 24: HUACHUCA CITY, Arizona

March 25 – 27.  Huachuca City is not our destination.  But it is close to all the sites we want to visit. Tombstone is next door, Kartchner Caverns State Park is the other way.  So is Bisbee.  We stayed here for three nights.  We are staying at Tombstone Territories RV Resort.  This is a small park with less than 100 sites.  This is a very nice place out in the desert.  The layout is nice, neat and clean and the sites are very large and we have a strong WiFi signal at our site.  It is very quiet and the night sky is full of stars.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the stars at night.  The only downside to this park is that the restrooms are old and there are only two shower stalls in each of the restrooms; for 100+ people.  And there is a shared dressing room for the two stalls, so no privacy.  So it will be a sponge bath for me in the trailer.  

TOMBSTONE

Tombstone is a Historical American Landmark.  It is an authentic western town from the 1880's.  Most of the buildings in the downtown area are original and silver is what made this town prosperous in the 1880’s.  This is the place where the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday had a 30 second gunfight with five outlaw cowboys at O.K. Corral.  This gunfight became known as the most famous gunfight in the history of the American west. The good guys won.  

We wandered the main street and checked out all the shops (mostly tacky tourist stuff).  One shop, “Arlenes” had some nice stuff in it.  

This was a character on the street corner.

Had a great lunch here

One of the glass art works in this place.

We had a very nice lunch at Longhorn Restaurant. 

Dave had liver and onions and I had salmon.

KARTCHNER CAVERNS STATE PARK

Kartchner Caverns is a living cave. This limestone cave was discovered in 1974 by two men who earlier found the sinkhole leading to the cavern.  At that time the land where the caverns are was owned by James and Lois Kartchner, who later donated the land to the state park system. These caverns are amazing with gigantic formations that have started forming over 100,000 years ago.  You can witness the cave living as you tour it.  We did the Big Room tour.  This is a new tour and it closes every April when the bats migrate to this room to give birth.

Entrance to the BIG ROOM tour.  We were not allowed to take photos (because it bothers the other visitors... it’s only because they want you to buy the books and postcards).  So I got the cave pictures off of GOOGLE and they are pictures of the areas we actually saw.  This cavern is awesome and it is a ‘must see’ whenever you are south eastern part of Arizona.

They call these ‘turnips’.

The Big Room

There is a garden and nature trail on the grounds of the Kartchner Caverns Visitor Center.

Several signs along the trail had this carved artwork on them.

BISBEE

Bisbee became internationally renowned during the 1880’s mining rush.  Bisbee mines, nestled in the foothills of the Mule Mountains in southeast Arizona produced more than $2 billion in copper, gold, lead, silver and zinc.  By 1900 Bisbee was the largest cosmopolitan center between St. Louis and San Francisco.  Most of the mines closed in the early 1970’s.  Soon the miner’s shacks were replaced with artist studios.  Today it is a colorful town with lots of galleries and unique shops.  We found very few tacky tourist shops.

 Main Street 

  Colorful shop on Main Street 

 A stair climb event in Bisbee.  Bisbee is built on hillsides that require stair climbing to get to many places.

 A nice garden on the patio of an organic cafe that we had lunch at; Ana's Seasonal Kitchen.

                

  Mining company headquarters; now a museum

 Copper nugget

At the red arrow: Mining company headquarters with the Copper Queen Hotel behind it.

Next stop is Chiricahua National Momument.