Chiricahua National Monument

I took a hike the other day, just to get away from the craziness of trying to get Tam’s mom moved into her second assisted living facility in one month (yeah, don’t ask). Tam had visited this place a month before, and recommended it, so up I went.

Chiricahua National Monument is about two hours East of Tucson, and about forty miles south of I-10. It is really the middle of the middle of nowhere. I hiked for four hours and saw exactly three other people for a total of about ten seconds. It is wild and remote.The trails were rough, but well maintained, and, strangely, well signed and easy to follow. I would guess the total vertical change was probably about twenty-five hundred to three thousand feet over about nine miles. Not too bad.

I decided to take the longest hike I could find (did I mention I was trying to hide out from family?), so picked this really wild nine mile hike through this unbelievably alien landscape.

I have to apologize up front, though, for the really poor photography on this one. I started at 10:30, and it was already ninety-one degrees. I finished up four hours later at ninety-nine degrees, and the sun was directly overhead the entire time. It was not the best timing for great photography (my sweat kept messing up the lens on my iPhone), but the subject matter is really cool.

That strange name of the place is an old Opata word meaning “wild turkey”. I did see a bunch of them up there.

They remind me so much of the peacocks in Sri Lanka.

The landscapes here were amazing. Miles of trails wandering through the thinnest most unlikely spires and tenuously balanced blocks and stacks of rhyolite tuff rock.

It really drove me crazy to be there and not be able to climb (it is illegal to climb in the national monument). All the rock is good-quality and the formations and features are just screaming to be climbed.

But, what a gorgeous landscape!

Just miles and miles wandering through these crazy spires. Such a wild place.

Spires like these. So many of these were four to five hundred feet tall, and so narrow at the base. Ii never saw any fall over, but they look like they could go at any minute.

There were short fat ones and tall skinny ones…

…And ones that even looked like Buddha sitting in meditation.

And this beauty. This one was at least four hundred feet tall. It was fantastic!

There were these great little grottoes and places to squeeze through and explore.

This one was sketchy. So very little holding that giant block up there above my head!

There were so many of these formations that looked like faces. I spent so much of the day playing the “Oh shit! That looks just like…” game.

This one looks a little like ET. Maybe?

Or the computer Deep Thought (from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy”).

This one could just be some random old guy.

This one… I am Groot!

(Hey, if you know, you know)

These were called the kissing rocks. Imagine that. I loved that they even had little lips and a nose and everything.

She is pretty thin. I am not too sure that that little square block will hold her up much longer. Good thing he is holding her up!

These two were called “Punch and Judy” I can totally see it! Sitting there in their little puppet stage yelling at each other for eternity. Punch even has a hat on, and Judy has her hair done up!

There were a bunch of crazy desert plants and old dead trees. Parts of this area still have nice, wooded pine groves, but a lot of it has been burned over the years. It is a tough environment to be a plant.

This unlikely rock is called “Pinnacle Balanced Rock”. It seems a fairly obvious name, but somehow fitting, without needing too much imagination.

And that’s all there is holding it up: a little patch of crumbly rock. Some of these made me think I was pretty lucky to see them.

They may not be there too much longer.

This rock was big. And perfectly balanced.

And, so as not to stretch the limits of their imagination, yes. It was named…

“Big Balanced Rock”

I do love the rock to the left and behind “Big Balanced Rock” though, how it looks like he fell off his base and got stuck there on his side.

What a great day, and a quiet getaway from the stress of family responsibilities. I am grateful to Tam that she let me sneak off for the day. It was a crazy beautiful, quiet, deserted place, and it was almost all mine.

It could only have been better if Tam had been able to go with me (except for the whole walking uphill thing that she hates so much).