Camping in Chiricahua National Monument

Down in the southeast corner of Arizona is the little-visited but awe-inspiring Chiricahua National Monument. It's not easy to get to and it's pretty remote (Wilcox is the nearest big town, almost 40 miles away) but we thought it was a very worthwhile trip.

The area was set aside as a national monument in 1924 to protect the many unique rock formations known as "hoodoos" or "pinnacles". During the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps built and enhanced the 17 miles of hiking trails that wind through and around the towers of rocks.

A band of Chiricahua Apaches were the original inhabitants who moved into this region in the 1400s. An oasis of trees, water, and big game, these mountains provided them with everything they needed to thrive. They were fierce warriors and resisted colonization, first by the Spanish and then by the countries of both Mexico and the United States. After a nearby farm settlement was raided by another band of Apache in 1861, the farmer mistakenly accused the Chiricahua Apaches and their chief Cochise of raiding the farm. This kicked off a series of escalating battles called the Apache Wars. Using his knowledge of the mountainous terrain Cochise managed to evade the US Army for more than a decade and avoid capture, eventually agreeing to allow a large reservation to be established in 1872 (most of modern day Cochise County) where his people could live in their traditional way. He passed away peacefully in 1874.

After the death of chief Cochise, the Chiricahua Apache lacked a strong leader to champion their rights. The Chiricahua Reservation was closed down by the US Government, and the remaining Chiricahua people were sent to other, less desirable, reservations in the southwest. With war bands led by Geronimo and others they continued to fight into the 1880s for their freedom to live on their own land in their own way. Despite their efforts, the band had been reduced from 1200 Apaches during Cochise's time to less than half that number by the time the US Army ultimately forced Geronimo to surrender in 1886. They were moved off their land to reservations in the Eastern US and held there as prisoners-of-war until 1913.

As I mentioned, this is a pretty remote place, but there is one campground within the boundaries of the monument. Bonita Campground has 26 sites and restrooms with running water. But because there are no showers available we only booked ourselves for two nights. Our campsite was pretty pleasant and got a reasonable amount of shade in the afternoon, but it was still a bit toasty when the tent was in full sun.

This place is great for wildlife watching. We saw some Arizona white-tailed deer...

... a very noisy wild turkey ...

... and we were very lucky to see a white-nosed coati just meandering up the hill behind our campsite.

We enjoyed this part of our great state of Arizona. There is so much history here and Chiricahua National Monument truly deserves its nickname "A Wonderland of Rocks".

Southwest Road Trip Video

Southwest Road Trip: Great Basin National Park

Great Basin National Park is on the very eastern edge of Nevada where it borders Utah. It's one of the most remote National Parks in the country -- on the drive here we encountered maybe a handful of other cars. The reason for the strange name "Great Basin" is that this region of the United States offers no outlet to the sea. In Central Nevada the rivers and streams flow inland and eventually evaporate from shallow lakes and mud flats because of the arid conditions.

But the park itself gets heavy snowpack thanks to its proximity to Wheeler Peak and the mountains here. Our campsite in Upper Lehman Campground was surrounded by plenty of lush tall trees that provided ample shade. Unfortunately we had to set up the tent here twice because the first time we forgot to sweep away some of the sharp and small pine cones and rocks -- ouch! Good practice, I guess!

Our site was right next to the Lehman River. A tranquil spot for reading a book or having a glass of wine at sundown. We did see deer coming through here on several occasions.

Because of its isolated location, Great Basin is a Dark Sky park -- there are no big towns or cities nearby, making this a wonderful spot to stargaze because there is minimal light pollution. The excellent ranger program was a great introduction to stargazing -- they set up three Celestron telescopes so that everyone had a chance to see the stars after the sun went down. We were there on a fairly clear night and the Milky Way was plainly visible with the naked eye.

Another feature of the park is the Lehman Cave system. You can go into the caves on one of the guided tours, and it's best to book ahead because they sell out. We got lucky and were able to upgrade our pre-booked 30-minute Gothic tour to the longer 90-minute Grand Palace tour that explores all the open sections of the cave. 

There are lots of hiking options in this park, but it is definitely high-altitude hiking. The brave (and very fit) can hike to the summit of Mount Wheeler (13,063 ft), which is above the treeline and involves quite a lot of scrambling over rocky scree and talus. We opted for the still-challenging but less fatiguing Bristlecone Pine-Glacier Trail.

The Bristlecone Pine trees in this grove are nearly twice as old as the ones at Cedar Breaks. Note how the wood of the trunk twists and curves.

We went as far as the rock glacier, which sits at 11,500 feet elevation in a cirque just below Wheeler Peak.  This glacier is mostly covered in rock and is one of the southernmost glaciers in the U.S. It is Nevada's only remaining glacier.

We did several other hikes including the loop that goes past both Stella and Teresa Lakes. We were glad we had the opportunity to visit this remote park, it was definitely worth the long drive and far off the beaten path!

Southwest Road Trip: Cedar Breaks National Monument

 As we headed through the mountains to our next destination, dark clouds started gathering. We arrived at Point Supreme Campground in Cedar Breaks National Monument and knew we would have only moments to set up some shelter before the downpour. It's a big tent with a lot of complicated parts -- it usually takes us about an hour or so to get it all set up. This time, running at full speed we managed to get it completely set up in less than 30 minutes -- a new record!

Which was a really good thing, since we had only a minute or two to spare. As soon as we were inside, it started pouring and didn't stop for about two hours! Luckily I'd grabbed our bags with our e-readers so we could at least do some reading while we waited for the rain to subside.

Once the skies cleared, we did a little bit of exploring by car to see the views into the amphitheater. Cedar Breaks is near the top of the "Grand Staircase" -- exposed layers of rock that begin at the base of the Grand Canyon, up through the formations of Zion National Park, and ending up at about the same elevation as those at Bryce Canyon. It really does look like a smaller (and less crowded!) version of Bryce Canyon because both parks are part of the Claron rock formation. The rocks are a similar orange-red, and the same weathered "hoodoo" formations can be seen at both parks.

We just happened to arrive at Cedar Breaks for their Wildflower week -- it seemed like the entire park was in bloom with a huge variety of wildflowers. We made sure to go on a ranger-guided wildflower walk so that we could learn all the names of the flowers we were seeing everywhere.

Which I promptly forgot, of course! I did look this one up -- it looks like a Variable Checkerspot butterfly pollinating some kind of yellow Cinquefoil flower.

There were so many flowers that even our ranger was stumped for the names of some of them. The only one I still remember without looking it up is the Colorado Columbine. On other hikes we saw lots of white ones and even a few lavender-blue ones.

We did two long-ish hikes while we were in the park. the first one was the Alpine Pond loop trail. While it didn't have many views of the canyons or ridges, there were tons of trees and wildflowers to look at. And as its moniker would suggest, it did lead to an alpine pond.

On our second full day in the park, we did the more strenuous South Rim Trail to Ramparts Point. From this hike we had spectacular views of the entire amphitheater. It was truly breathtaking and one of my favorite hikes.

One other unique feature of the Ramparts hike was walking through the ancient Bristlecone Pines at Spectra Point.

Bristlecone Pines are some of the oldest living things on Earth -- some of the trees here are over 1500 years old. They thrive in the most extreme conditions where other trees can't grow -- windy, arid areas with poor soil.

Cedar Breaks is definitely one of the hidden gems of our National Parks system. It gets less tourism attention than the larger parks in this part of Utah (Bryce Canyon, Zion) but it was well worth a visit and we really enjoyed our time here.

Southwest Road Trip: Capitol Reef National Park

From the Grand Canyon we drove north to Capitol Reef National Park, one of our very favorite parks. We've visited before, but this was our first time staying at the Fruita campground within the park. We had one of the nicest spots in the campground, right next to an enormous shade tree. The Fremont river is just on the other side of the tree.

Visible from the campground is the Gifford Homestead. During the 1880's this area alongside the Fremont river was settled by Mormons who worked the land and planted fruit orchards (hence the name of the town/campground). The park service has preserved both the homestead and a nearby one-room schoolhouse as a living history museum.

The park service also cares for the 2500 fruit trees in the orchards along the river. Inside the Gifford farmhouse, they sell fresh fruit pies and other baked goods. The best kind of souvenir, in my opinion!

We hiked part of the Cohab Canyon trail and were able to get a good perspective on the fruit orchards. The lush landscape along the river is a drastic contrast to the arid desert land on either side of the river valley. You can see why the Mormons would choose to settle here.

Of course the Mormons weren't the first human inhabitants of this area. From about 600-1300 A.D., Fremont tribes and Ancestral Puebloan people lived here. They lived in pit houses and left many artefacts of archaeological significance, including some amazing petroglyphs.

Humans aren't the only residents in the park. Some of our campground guests included wild turkeys and a small herd of deer.

The last time we were here we only had limited time for hiking. But for this trip we were excited to be able to explore a bit more. One of the first hikes we did in the park was to Cassidy Arch.

Cassidy Arch is named for Butch Cassidy, the famous outlaw who grew up in this part of Utah. His boyhood home is not far from the park. The area near Cassidy Arch trail would be the perfect place for outlaws to hide out from the law -- lots of twisting canyons and interesting rock formations.

The Cassidy Arch trail is one of the most popular hikes in the park. But because of an extra-early start, we only encountered two other hikers while we were on the way up (they were on their way down, so they must've had an extra-extra-early start!).  By the time we got to the trail summit we had the whole arch to ourselves.

Coming down, we encountered many more hikers. It was still pretty early in the day, so we decided to hike partway into the nearby Grand Wash as well. There were many narrow slot canyon passages.

Once we got back to the parking area, we could see gray clouds and lightning on the horizon. We did not want to be in the narrow canyon during a storm so we got back in the car and headed back to the campground. This was June 23rd. There was a rainstorm in the afternoon and a flash flood did come through the areas of Grand Wash (where we had been hiking) and Capitol Gorge, stranding hikers and destroying vehicles. Luckily no one was hurt. We spent most of that rainy afternoon safe and dry in the tent, but after the rain stopped we could hear the rescue helicopters working late into the evening bringing people out of the wash to safety. For the rest of our three-day visit, most of the popular hiking trails were closed for safety reasons due to the storm damage. We did manage to hike part of the Cohab Canyon trail to the Fruita viewpoint (as I mentioned above) and we also hiked to Hickman Bridge. The Hickman trail was a lot more crowded, probably because it was one of the only open trails in the park. We loved our time at this park and I am sure we will return again in the future.

After a week of traveling, we stopped in the nearby town of Torrey to do a quick load of laundry. Then we headed up the road to Teasdale where we had splurged on a one-night stay at the Red River Lodge.

What a place! It's a huge working ranch, over 2000 acres, and the lodge is luxuriously furnished.

There are 15 guestrooms, and we loved the vintage theme of our room on the third floor. It felt like we were living in a movie set.

This was a wonderful place to hang out and relax. We spent the afternoon lounging outside watching the sun move over the red cliffs nearby. And Kevin made a friend. We hope to stay here again next time we head to Capitol Reef.

Southwest Road Trip: Grand Canyon National Park

 On a sweltering Saturday in June, we loaded up our car (and I really mean loaded -- our 4-door sedan was literally packed to capacity with camping gear) and headed out on a multi-week trip to some of the least-crowded National Parks in the southwest. At least that was the original plan. However, a wildfire on route 89 near Flagstaff forced us to change our route a little and kick off our trip at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon -- usually one of the most popular and busy National Park sites. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that although there were crowds, it was nowhere near as crowded as we'd expected for the middle of summer.

As mentioned, we'd originally planned to drive straight to the North Rim but the Pipeline and Haywire fires forced us to take an alternate and longer route. So we were lucky to be able to reserve a room  for one night at the Kachina Lodge, right in the heart of the Grand Canyon Village. We couldn't do any hiking because we'd arrived too late in the day, but we did have a nice dinner on the El Tovar patio and a pleasant walk along the South Rim to enjoy the spectacular views.

The next morning, after a very scenic drive through the Vermillion Cliffs area, we finally arrived at the North Rim. It was much less crowded, and we had no problem finding some lounge chairs on the terrace at the lodge.

We discovered that dining options were much much more limited on this side of the canyon! We stayed in one of the cabins near the lodge and quickly realized that the lodge had only a small deli and the main dining room for dinner options. There was a mini-mart over at the campground, but our cabin did not have a refrigerator or microwave for cooking anything. I had only made one dinner reservation in advance for the lodge dining room, and we were informed that it was pretty booked up for the other two nights. Luckily we were able to charm the host into giving us two other reservations (one very early around 4:30, one very late at 9pm). The food was just so-so for the price, but it was pretty much the only game in town. We did love the views from inside the lodge -- the picture windows in the lounge next to the dining room had expansive views of the canyon.

For our first morning, our number one priority was to get up early and hike a bit of the Kaibab Trail down into the canyon. We knew the trailhead parking lot would fill up so we got an early start around 7am. An added benefit was that the weather was still somewhat cool for the first part of the hike down. We took a brief break at the fantastic Coconino overlook.

We decided to hike down about two miles and turn around once we reached the Supai tunnel. Kevin is in great shape but I am not quite as fit and I wanted to make sure I had enough energy to hike back up!

It is always so much easier hiking down than up, right? Coming back the trail was steep and relentlessly uphill. While we were at the Supai tunnel, we crossed paths with one of the mule trains. As we hiked back upward and the day started getting hotter, I felt a small twinge of jealousy that those tourists got the same views we did with a fraction of the effort!

Over our three day visit, we did a few other less strenuous hikes including Transept Trail (beautiful and uncrowded) and the dizzying walk to Bright Angel Point (not for the faint of heart!). We also took the scenic drive to Cape Royal. It was such a gorgeous drive that we did it more than once! One of our favorite spots was the lookout near Point Imperial. We brought a lunch, our chairs, and our books and just sat for a few hours reading and admiring the view.

There is nothing like the Grand Canyon at sunset. This is dusk at the Angel's Window formation near Cape Royal.

From the Cape Royal viewpoint, we enjoyed watching the Wotan's Throne rock formation change color as the sun slowly set. So beautiful! This was my first time to the North Rim and I enjoyed every moment; hopefully we will be lucky enough to come back up here again someday!