National Parks are so famed, they tend to overshadow National Monuments– but I’m learning that National Monuments often contain similar amounts of grandeur– and even very similar rock formations.
Everyone associates the famous “hoodoo” and balanced-rock formations with Bryce Canyon National Park, a park that gets about 2.6 million visitors per year. Chiricahua, by contrast, gets about 60,000 a year.
Chiricahua is only about 5 by 6 miles in size– it’s a tiny speck of land compared to some of the more vast National Monuments like Grand Staircase Escalante. So it’s not only a hidden gem, but a small one — tucked into the Southeast corner of Arizona.
We decided to hike the most famous of the hikes– the 7.5-mile, 1500-feet-of-gain Heart of Rocks Loop from the Visitors Center. It was the dead of winter in the States, but the snowmelt had begun even at this high elevation in Arizona– as there had been a warm spell. Which was key to the hike, as we encountered snow and ice throughout, slipping our crampons on and off again as we snaked up the valley and hit sunny patches, vs. patches never touched by sunlight.
It was freezing when we started– about 20 degrees– not generally a temperature Moon enjoys hiking in. But she put on her beret– her way of still maintaining some sense of fashion on the trail– and trudged upward as we ascended, knowing it would warm her up to sweat as we climbed.
The hoodoos were visible immediately as we began the trail, and I knew (based on our experience at Bryce) that they would get more pronounced as we rose in elevation, and would pull away from the mountain face even more, becoming more dramatic.
These particular formations were volcanic– caused by an eruption tens of millions of years ago. Once the layers of ash settled and formed on top of the harder rock layers, being more porous– it eroded over the years into these various, awkward shapes.
Speaking of dramatic– Mac was looking the part of a full Bark Ranger in his hiking pack, fully alert due to the looming possibility of Snow Zoomies– his favorite kind of Zoomies (see below and to the left for a picture of him galloping up the trail).
The rocks were covered in ice in places (seen above), thick ice that sometimes was practically colorless because of the purity of the water running down the mountain from the untouched snowfall. Thick icicles protruded from different rock crags, and we watched our footfalls carefully for ice.
As we rose and rose, we made slower progress as we had to slip our crampons on and off what felt like dozens of times– the muddy and icy crampons were easy to put on, but annoying to strap in and out of each time.
But as with many hikes, the payoff wasn’t clear until the top– one large flight of ‘stairs’ led to a veritable gallery of hoodoos, balanced rocks, hanging chads, or whatever else you call rocks that have eroded in a way that makes them precariously perch. You can see how small Moon is compared to the large hoodoos on the picture on the left, for scale.
The first of the balanced rocks was huge, and looked vulnerable to falling with the slightest touch. The rest of the landscape was dotted with hoodoos as far as the eye could see, with lines and plains of them lasting well into the horizon line.
The top of the hike featured a very variable 1-mile loop that weaved RIGHT through the hoodoos and strange rock formations, making the scale of them all the more striking. That such massive, heavy rocks could be so delicately held in-place was almost funny, even while the hike got more rugged thanks to more unpredictable patches of snow and ice. Mac was not amused, spreading out his paws to their widest to prevent him from slipping.
There were a few views smattered throughout of the back face of the mountain– the valley below holding hoodoos in droves. They almost seemed to pile up in visual– looking almost like a sea floor full of coral in the far distance.
Hiking among these gentle giants, we were in awe but also exhausted and ready for descent. But Mac was oddly as charged up as when we started– his intermittent Snow Zoomies keeping him energized. I promised you a video of his Zooms, which is below this block of photos.
Here’s Mac absolutely losing his mind with joy in the snow: it will be a bit blurry due to resolution, but is very indicitive of how he was feeling spry on this day.
And lastly, here’s a video I took coming down the mountain, to get across the absolute wide scale of the breadth of the hoodoos. When I said they seemed to go on forever, I meant it. The valley was chock full of them.
All told, Chiricahua National Monument was a real surprise– having zero expectations of the place, I was pretty astounded to feel how unknown the place was relative to its beauty. If you’re visiting Southeast Arizona, don’t miss it.
Posted by Sun
