adventures in arizona: chiricahua national monument

while at ft. bowie i picked up a pamphlet for the chiricahua national monument and showed dave a picture. "i want to go here." the photo was breaktaking, as was the park itself. look at these amazing rocks!

it wasn't far from ft. bowie, but we decided to come back another day as we were all a little tired from our hike there. so a couple weeks later we returned to the region and discovered this amazing hidden valley, or "sky islands" as they were called. the visitor center was open and humming with tourists and guides. the guides were very friendly and helpful in deciding where we should go. they choose echo canyon for us as it would have good views, but was family friendly.

the visitor center also had a short video about the chiricahuas. it provided a little of the backstory of ft. bowie and how the chiricuhuas were a home to the apache indians. i ended up walking out with beniah because he wasn't that interested in the documentary, but i would have loved to finish it. ;)

we headed up the seven mile road to our trailhead. the drive out there we kept looking for these amazing rocks and couldn't find them. they are hidden within the valley of this mountain range so its not until you drive into the state park that you begin to see everything. i would have taken a TON more pictures..but my battery was near dead (silly me) so we only have a few.

at the trailhead of echo canyon.

the view NEVER got old!

unfortunately this photo does not do this area justice..at all. this is echo canyon grotte. there were huge rocks that were suspended above you balancing on rocks on the sides. so that rock in the top right corner of the photo looks as if it could just fall in at any moment.

here you can kind of see how the rocks are hanging between other rocks. the rock directly behind the boys was just hanging out.

while i was setting B up for a photo, dave climbed behind the rocks and surprised him

it was so beautiful and serene-i couldn't help myself!

i'm still trying to convince dave to do a camping trip. he is not very interested. at the start of this hike he thought out loud, "maybe we could come back and camp out here." i gleefully reminded him on the way back to the car and he decided he had changed his mind. he claims he is not a camper. :( i will keep trying! :)