June 29
After another 260 miles and 5 ¼ hours we arrived at Chiricahua National Monument, AZ. Since Arizona doesn’t recognize daylight savings time, we gained another hour. We used this hour to stock up on some perishables and lots of ice at a Safeway in Willcox, AZ on our way to the park.
Chiricahua National Monument is called the “sky island” – an isolated mountain range rising up in a sea of grassland. Twenty-seven million years ago the Turkey Creek Volcano erupted, spewing huge amounts of ash over 1,200 square miles. These ash layers melted together and formed layers of gray rock called rhyolite. Later cooling, upheaval, and erosion shaped the remarkable formations, spires, balanced rocks and other shapes. They are reminiscent of Bryce Canyon’s hoodoos.
The Chiricahua Mountains are a meeting place for four ecosystems. Species from the Sonoran Desert to the west, the Chihahuan Desert to the east, the Rocky Mountains to the north, and the Sierra Madres from the south live here. Starting sometime in July and lasting into September, the Chiricahuas receive almost daily monsoon rains. Now however, the area is parched, even at higher elevations. The beautiful red-barked manzanita grows here.
The Chiricahua Mountains were home to the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apaches. These Apaches fought relentlessly again the Spanish colonization in the 1500s through the encroachment by settlers and miners in the 1800s. Their leaders were Cochise and later Geronimo. Geronimo finally surrendered in 1886. The Apaches were resettled on reservations in Oklahoma and New Mexico.
As with the other desert locations we visited, we found the Bonita Canyon Campground nearly deserted. Behind our site was the completely dry creek bed of Bonita Creek. Pretty pale blue Mexican jays flew through the alligator junipers of the campground. We saw the Arizona white-tailed deer and lots of woodpeckers.
As it cooled in the evening, we took a 2.8 mile round trip hike to the homesteads at Faraway Ranch, built by Swedish immigrants in 1888, and Stafford Cabin. With the lack of daylight savings time, it gets dark very early. Our hike back began in the dusk and ended in complete darkness. Along the way William caught sight of an elusive coatimundi, a racoon-like animal originally from South America that has taken up residence in these mountains.
The campground host told us there was a 5.2 earthquake in the area the night before. Had we arrived a day earlier, we might have felt it.
Getting ready for bed we noticed a huge number of small moths and tiny black bugs in our camper. They had been attracted to our interior lights and every time we opened the door, more had sneaked in. The masses of moths trapped in the park’s bathroom building should have warned us. We watched as bats swooped against our screens, eating the moths sitting on the outside of our windows trying to get in. So, although the insects weren’t dangerous, we had a restless night’s sleep as they tickled us throughout the night.
June 30
In the morning we caught the hikers’ shuttle. We were surprised that the park service even offered a shuttle in their slow season, but not that we were the only ones using it. A friendly park ranger took us up the 8-mile Bonita Canyon Drive to Massai Point at 6870 feet. Instead of using the shuttle van, she drove us in a 4-door Chevy sedan. We hiked down to the Echo Canyon trail head and took the Echo Canyon Trail, to the Upper Rhyolite Trail, to the Lower Rhyolite Trail, and back to the visitor center where we had left our truck. The first part of the hike had us winding down through the spectacular rock formations. We passed through the impressive Echo Canyon Grottoes. We then wound through the forests of the canyon and over dry Bonita Creek. The latter part was along the exposed slope of one of the mountains. In total we hiked 4.7 miles in nearly 5 hours.
We had intended to search for another coatimundi at dusk but had to unexpectedly replenish our freshwater tank and missed our walk. We also wanted to do some stargazing as the stars were incredible without the usual light pollution, but the surrounding trees really limited our field of view. At night we slept much better without the moths as we were much more careful about opening the door with the lights on.
The Davids' Cross-Country Trip 