Earth, Wind, and Spires

 We’ve been mostly offline for a few days and I have a brief connection, so this is a catch-up post

Earth

On 2/20 (Day 10 of our trip) we visited Rockhound State Park in NM. Rocks are definitely earth - in its most solid form. Elena poked around for interesting rocks for several hours. Bebop also looked at rocks.

Rockhound State Park in NM

 On 2/21 we drove toward our next destination of Cave Creek near Portal, AZ. Portal is just west of the NM/AZ border. Rodeo, NM sits on the NM side of the border. On our drive there across southern New Mexico we mostly had the road to ourselves. We would see another vehicle about every 10 miles - and most of those were shiny new border patrol vehicles sitting or driving around. In Texas we even saw a Border Patrol fixed blimp with radar hovering between Fort Davis and Valentine. It looked like a big shark in the sky.

But back to our drive. We crossed the continental divide three times. It ranged from about 4,200 to 4,600 feet, but every time it was just on a flat open parcel of land. The east-west drainage border is very subtle in southern New Mexico. You could see mountains, but they were scattered. The biggest mountain range in the distance was the Coronado Forest / Chiricahua range - and there was even a little snow on some peaks. 

Wind

By mid-morning the southwest wind began to pick up as forecast. It was steady at 30mph with gusts well over 50mph. The van was a rockin'. As we got closer to Portal, the dust began to pick up and blow. This was back to the Earth portion - in dust form. It wasn’t bad enough to stop, but it wasn’t pretty. As we got near Portal, the mountains began to block the winds a bit. 

We turned SW into Cave Creek and found an amazing canyon. It’s like a mini Yosemite Valley, but without all the tourists. We hiked the 4 mile round trip South Fork Trail that runs along a creek bed. The views were impressive up and down this valley. And unlike the desert we just left, it was lush with pine and oak trees. It was also protected from the strong winds. I’ve travelled a lot and I can’t believe this place has been off my radar.  Apparently this is also a big birding area as we saw a few people with bird books, major zoom lenses, and binoculars. We found a spot in the Sunny Flat campground for the night. In the evening, we hiked the 2-mile RT nature trail that departed from our campground.

Cave Creek near Portal, AZ

Sunset from our campground in Cave Creek

On 2/22/22 we headed for the Chiricahua National Monument on the western flank of the mountain range. From our campsite it was only 23 miles, but that was on an unpaved forest service road through the mountains. The visitors center worker told us a couple from Alaska just tried to cross with a 4-wheel drive vehicle, but had to back down (It’s narrow with no place to turn around) due to ice and snow. So, we took the 110-mile loop drive up and around the north end of the mountain range.

 

Google Maps can be cruel. First, it routed us down this narrow road with branches scraping the sides of the van. The road looked like it would connect to a bigger road, but it came to a dead ended. I had to back the van out. Then it put us on a wider road, but the pavement ended, and we had a dirt road with some washboards for about 17 miles. We survived and made it to Chiricahua NM.

Spires

We arrived at Chiricahua around mid-day. It's an old volcanic area with eroding spires. The rocks look like they are all standing up - and there are many. We mapped out a hiking plan that matched our skills. Elena is not good with too much vertical hiking, so she and I hiked the Echo Canyon Loop - 3.8 miles with about 600’ of elevation gain. We also took in the views from the overlook point. I'm planning a long solo hike in the morning. More photos and hike info about this area in the next edition.

 

- Paul