Chiricahua National Monument - April 23, 2003

The last stop on my vacation for Spring, 2003, was Chiricahua National Monument. It is one of those places that you really have to want to go to, because it is pretty much out in the middle of nowhere - about 30 miles southeast of the bustling metropolis of Willcox (or Wilcox - I've seen it spelled both ways), Arizona. Willcox is right off I-10, about an hour and a half east of Tucson. Willcox is nice enough, but there isn't much to the town.

As I said, Chiricahua is about 30 miles away from Willcox, down a two-lane road. I wasn't sure what to expect, except that all the literature I found about it said that it was similar to Bryce Canyon (a place I have also visited and liked very much) and was formed many millions of years ago due to volcanic activity. Of course, much of the world has been formed due to volcanic activity.

Looking at the literature, it says that Chiricahua was called the "Land of the Standing-Up Rocks" by the Apache, who lived here and used the surrounding mountains to launch attacks against pioneers for a number of years. The literature also says the geologists believe that an eruption from a nearby volcano about 27 million years ago (who can even fathom that much time?) "spewed forth" ash, which cooled into a thick, dark layer of volcanic rock, rhyolite. The mountains formed from this "spewing", and eventually time and erosion occurred to form the formations you see today. The picture, above, kinds of looks like a rabbit to me.

I only spent about 3 hours at Chiricahua before I determined that I needed to head back to San Diego and home. After all, people (well, Vicki) couldn't watch the cats forever. But I really, really liked Chiricahua. It was still very cool in the mountains in April, so the weather was good for tramping around on the trails, and there seemed to be many of them. I only hiked a few - up to Sugarloaf Mountain and in the vicinity of Masai Point.

But I liked Chiricahua so much that I plan to return in the fall of 2003 to spend more time there.

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