The Coati Canyon

 

10-27 

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After a very pleasant night’s sleep – I love when the temperature is just right – I scrapped together some breakfast, packed Jane up, and headed back out into the world (which wasn’t very far away, considering my proximity to the interstate). Today’s destination: Chiricahua National Monument!

Jane sounds pretty good to me after the rocker replacement, but I still babied the motor a little bit. Mostly that just means that I drove 75 MPH instead of 80. I mean, let’s be real, it’s not like I wasn’t imminently going to rip home at 85 MPH after this one last stop or anything. Jane isn’t really made for babying, after all.

Yes, but what IS the Thing???

Traffic on I-10 was pretty light and we made good time, swooping through Tucson and on to Willcox in a flash. In Willcox, we hopped off the interstate and onto a much friendlier road: Highway 186. This beautiful two-lane blacktop arrows straight out to Chiricahua, seemingly (probably) built for the sole purpose of delivering people to the hidden beautiful valley that the park holds. Bushes and tall prairie grass crowd close, even encroaching onto the road in places, giving it an air of abandonment. But the asphalt is smooth and flat and fresh, and it rolls across the low hills like a bolt of black silk, unfolding unerringly towards its destination. These are my favorite kinds of roads – the ones that feel like particularly well-kept secrets. The ones that feel like they’ve been saving the best of America just for a single person, to experience all to themselves. Or a person and their nearly 60-year-old pony car, as it happens.

After some time, the open grassy plains narrowed into a canyon, the endless glowing golden expanse giving way to a narrow forested avenue, dappled sunlight filtering down through the canopies of junipers and oaks.

In short order I arrived at the visitor center, a small affair with simple (but useful) exhibits, a great giftshop, and a coterie of very enthusiastic staff. I queried them about my options for the next day and a half, and got back stellar recommendations for the best way to allocate my time. Then, because the exhibits hadn’t clarified, I asked about the geologic history of the area. The ranger, Jacob, took me to a large 3D map of the park and explained that the fantastic outcrops in the area are the uplifted remnants of a large pyroclastic flow sourced from a caldera to the south. Volcanic debris seems to be a common theme for this trip!

He gave me some more tidbits about fun things to look for while out on the trails, which surprisingly included coati sightings! Coatis (or coatimundis) are kind of like a monkey racoon thing, and they're semi-tropical animals common in the jungles of Latin/South America. But apparently they range up into the Chiricahuas as well! Very exciting – I’ve never seen one but they are known to be VERY cute. I resolved to try my hardest to find one, imagining them to be elusive things, but Jacob said, “Oh, you could probably just sit at camp and see a whole bunch, don’t worry.” I didn’t really believe him, but I hoped that would be the case. Just imagine – a whole campsite full of these adorable fluffy guys!

I said my goodbyes and proceeded on up the road to go set up camp. And wouldn’t you know it… I hadn’t driven more than fifty feet before three coatis crossed the road right in front of me!

I guess I believe Jacob now.

I arrived at camp quickly thereafter. The park only has a single campground, named Bonita (a common name in the NPS for some reason – can’t count the number of Bonita campgrounds I’ve stayed at!), tucked away in a heavily forested hilly nook in the foothills of the mountains. Campsites are arranged around Bonita Creek, which I found to be mostly dry, but with small pools of water frequented by the most fantastically diverse array of birds. I found my nice shady site without difficulty and set up camp, stowing anything smelly in the provided metal box to guard against bears and coatis alike. I must say, one of those things is of significantly more concern than the other.

That sorted, I wandered off down the adjoining trail to fill the rest of my afternoon with a nice walk through history. The trail from the campground follows Bonita Creek back down the canyon, threading through forests, grassy fields, and orchards. The dense forest of the campground gives way to lighter terrains pretty quickly, and a short walk brings you to an open meadow that was once the site of a large CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) encampment. At one point the site had a mess hall, infirmary, bunkhouses, mechanic’s shop, library, and much more. Now, all that remains is two massive hearths overgrown with vines, flowers, and berries.

Much of Chiricahua’s infrastructure dates back to the CCC days. Crews built roads, bridges, and trails – pretty much everything that Chiricahua has today! Most would say that Chiricahua was built by the CCC. What a cool program, and a cool legacy to leave.

A ways further along, the trail spilled me out into Silver Spur Meadow, a large picturesque meadow that was the site of several homesteads in the 1800s and 1900s. I first passed the Stafford Cabin, one of the earliest pioneer homesteads in the canyon. Inexplicably, there was a 10% scale model of the cabin mounted on a trailer directly in front of it… hmmmm

As the day slipped towards the golden hour, the meadow lit up a brilliant gold, an ethereal, saintly cast that was undoubtedly a large part of the reason that early settlers stayed to eke out a hard living here.

Now, after the long absence of the settlers, wildlife have reclaimed the field as their own, a beautiful, homey, peaceful place. Fluffy-tailed deer browsed the fields without a care in the world, while birds flitted busily between the trees and grasses, their beaks stuffed with bugs. The meadow is beautiful, but experiencing it from the perspective of a local (mammalian or avian) makes it even more so. You might be thinking “well, it’s just deer, nothing special about that,” and in a way you’d be right. But if you’ve ever been around a wild animal that is completely at peace, unbothered by you or anything else, it is a pretty memorable experience. The kind of experience you can only get in a remote canyon that hasn’t been hunted in decades, with few predators of any type. The kind of experience that you can only get in a true sanctuary.

This photo taken shortly before the deer ran right up to me to see what I was up to!

The trail wound through the meadow and ended on the grounds of the Faraway Ranch, a historical ranch that was operated first as a working ranch, then as a guesthouse, from the 1880s to the 1940s. The owners were responsible for promoting Chiricahua, getting it established as a National Monument in 1924 (this year is its centennial anniversary!), and taking an active role in designing the roads and trails we use today. These were pioneers at their best, a family determined to not only care for the land they held for generations, but also to share it with the world.

The main house of Faraway Ranch still stands, now a part of the monument, casting its lordly gaze across the tall fields to the towering rock faces that earned this spot a National Monument designation.

Its tall, boxy, but rambling design is very southern-feeling, but the outbuildings – barns, workshops, and the like – are very distinctly southwestern, all twisted silvered wood and tin and horseshoes and haphazardly placed nails.

I poked around for a while, fascinated by the remnants of a different life. Now nothing but a ghost of the distant past, all the little odds and ends that comprise the detritus of a life on a working ranch made that past seem so close. The passage of time is certainly an odd thing.

As I turned to go back to camp, I looked up into the sky and saw something very bizarre: a comet-shaped patch of rainbow, hanging in the air among wispy clouds and nothing else.

Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like that! I tried Googling for the name of the phenomenon, but found nothing, so I suppose it will forever remain the mystery comet-rainbow in my mind. I kept an eye on it for a while as I walked, but it dissipated after a few short minutes, leaving me wondering if I had perhaps hallucinated it. But, according to my camera, I most certainly did not.

Back at camp, I put together dinner while keeping one ear on my surroundings. Not for bears, but for coatis! A troop of fifteen or so announced themselves with prolific rustling in the brush as they stamped through the leaves in search of worms and insects to eat for their own dinner.

These photos are terrible as it was getting quite dark, but you can still see all their adorable little tails in the air!

Omg baby coati

ADORABLE

I watched them for a long time, my dinner totally abandoned. They were not the least bit bothered by the humans watching them (because pretty much everyone in the campground was staring at them), nor were they interested in any of our campsites. I suppose they could constitute a pest just because they kind of scratch up the ground. But boy, those suckers are pretty devastatingly cute. I would very happily have a bunch of them in my backyard!

I discovered that the sun sets early in the canyon, at about 5:30. So, I had my dinner (not worms and insects) in the dark. The brilliant light of the Milky Way and its myriad subordinate stars shone through gaps in the canopies of the trees, nearly bright enough to cast shadows. What a spectacular place. I can’t wait to explore it tomorrow.

Kelly signing out.