Arizona Trail challenges hikers

If hiking is your passion, the Arizona Trail just might be your dream come true.

It’s an 800-mile trek that stretches from the border with Utah to the border with Mexico.  This non-motorized trail takes hikers through deserts and mountains, through all types of vegetation and ecosystems, with the opportunity to view lots of wildlife. It crosses the Grand Canyon as well as several mountain ranges.

The trail starts roughly a few miles east of Fredonia in the north and ends south of Sierra Vista. The trail can be hiked in either direction, though only a few people have done both ways.

The trail is divided into 43 segments, called passages. They range in length from 8.3 to 36 miles. Besides hikers, the trail also is open to mountain bikers and horseback riders.

  

Those who complete the entire length of the trail, either all at once or in segments, receive either a belt buckle or a pin from the Arizona Trail Association, which administers the trail.

 

The Arizona Trail runs through Colossal Cave Mountain Park east of Tucson. (picture below)

Fort Bowie, Arizona: defending the West

 

Remains of Fort Bowie

Fort Bowie may be a little bit out of the way for some tourists, but for travelers interested in learning more about the Frontier West it is well worth the effort to get there.

Located in southeast Arizona, Fort Bowie is the first tourist attraction visitors driving Interstate 10 from New Mexico will come to. Conversely, it is the last attraction motorists headed from Tucson to Las Cruces, New Mexico, will find.

Getting to the fort

 

The remains of the first and second Fort Bowie are located about 14 miles from Bowie, a small community that appears to be turning into a ghost town, with many main street buildings boarded up. After exiting the freeway, follow the signs, turning on Apache Pass Road.

 

A few miles down this paved road, the road to the Fort Bowie National Historic Site spikes to the left, while Apache Pass Road leads to the trailhead. There visitors can walk 1.5 miles through the hills to the fort’s remains. The trailhead has ample parking and clean restrooms, but no potable water, so be sure to bring plenty, especially on hot days.

 

Remains of Fort Bowie

Where the road spikes, the sign to the visitor center specifies this entrance is for handicapped visitors only. There are only two disabled parking spaces at the small visitor center, and motorists need to call ahead for the gate to be opened. There is parking for a few more cars below the visitor center, but this involves walking up an uneven stone and dirt path. Since the site only gets about 8,000 visitors a year, chances are good, parking will be available.  

Before taking this route, however, motorists need to decide how comfortable they feel driving on a narrow, one-lane gravel road with no shoulders or pull-offs. If you meet a car coming the other way, one of you is going to have to do a lot of backing up. If we had left the visitor center a few minutes later, that’s what would have happened to us since we encountered a delivery truck coming up the hill just past where the road widened.

A remote hillside fort

Plaque of Fort Bowie in 1894



Fort Bowie has a nice informational visitor center that is operated by the National Park Service, which administers the site. There are photographs of what the fort looked like in its heyday. The Army abandoned the fort in 1894; local farmers tore down buildings and fences for wood to build at their sites. What remains are fragments of adobe buildings that have survived the elements since that time. Troops also defended the area when Confederate soldiers invaded during the Civil War, hoping to secure the Southwest for the Confederacy.

The fort is named from Col. George Washington Bowie, leader of the California Volunteers who staffed the fort. It’s probable that he shared common ancestors with Jim Bowie of the Bowie knife and Alamo fame. The fort later became a stop for the Butterfield Overland Mail route.

 

Apache wars

Fort Bowie was an important fort during the  years of war with the Chiricahua Apaches. These wars started in approximately 1861, with the first Fort Bowie being established the following year. The war started when Cochise and  Lt. George Bascom failed to agree on how to rescue the stepson of a local farmer who claimed Apaches had kidnapped him and killed 20 cattle. During the coming days, each side would execute hostages, with a full-fledged battle ensuing. Cochise would visit the fort three times after he signed  a peace treaty ending the wars in 1872.

Chiricahua National Monument: a wonderland of rocks

Chiricahua National Monument

The National Park Service calls Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona a “wonderland of rocks.” As you drive through the park, looking at fantastic rock formations, it is hard to dispute that moniker. The Apaches who roamed the area called it, “The land of standing-up rocks,” another nickname that is hard to argue with.

The monument is in the Chiricahua Mountains, an inactive volcano field that is 20 miles wide and 40 miles long. The monument itself is almost 12,000 acres.

Road to Massai Point

Noteworthy about this spot is that it’s where the Chiricahua, Rockies and Sierra Madre mountains meet the Sonoran and Chiricahuan deserts. This makes for great biodiversity, as trees from the different ecosystems live side by side.

 
There’s a small visitor center with exhibits that shows an eight-minute video about the monument. It’s narrated by the late Rex Allen, a local boy who hit the big time in Hollywood. Next up is the scenic drive to Massai Point. Some of the road lies under a canopy of trees, but the volcanic rock formations are still in the limelight.



View from Massai Point

Massai Point has a circular turnaround, an interpretive center and restrooms. Trails start here but some visitors found them too steep to walk. More trails can be found at Echo Canyon; in all, the monument has 17 miles of trails.

Motorists should note that RVs and trailers longer than 29 feet are long are not allowed beyond the visitor center.

Chiricahua National Monument is located 37 miles south of Willcox. Exit Interstate 10 at Willcox and head south on Highway 186. Turn left on Highway 181. The drive from Willcox takes about 45 minutes.

Bisbee, Arizona: historic copper mining town

Old mining equipment

Bisbee is a quaint town with narrow streets and Victorian homes perched on hillsides in southeastern Arizona. It was founded in 1880 at a time when mining was king, or, perhaps the term “ queen” should be used since the Copper Queen was the city’s pre-eminent mine. Gold and silver also were mined here.


Remnants of past mining operations are abundant in Bisbee. The Copper Queen mine was originally an underground mine, but switched to open pit mining when this method of extraction became popular in the 20^th century. The huge open pit stretches for a couple of miles on the west side of Highway 80; Bisbee is on the other side. In the early 20^th century, the Copper Queen was the most productive copper mine in Arizona, producing an extremely high grade of copper. The copper ore removed from it also contained gold and silver.

 

Remains of Bisbee's open pit copper mine

Mining equipment decorates the lawn at the Bisbee Mining & Historical Museum, a National Landmark that once served as offices for Phelps Dodge, the company that operated the Copper Queen mine.

Today, Old Bisbee is a tourist attraction, as visitors flock to shop at art galleries, boutiques, book and antique shops, and view the quaint houses that fill the hillsides in the historic section of town. The houses have so many steps leading to them, the city sponsors a stair climb, in which runners go up and down more than 1,000 steps in a 5k run.

 

Downtown Old Bisbee

Bisbee: an historic town

Be forewarned, parking in Old Bisbee can be difficult to come by, especially on event weekends and one local said Bisbee has events almost every weekend. Streets are narrow, with sometimes not enough room for two vehicles to pass by each other, let alone allow for parking, even on one side.  On event weekends, visitors park on the shoulders of Highway 80 and then walk up or down the hill into town.

Bisbee is a popular locale used in movies and fiction books. J.A. Jance sets her Joanna Brady murder mystery novels in Bisbee and surrounding Cochise County. Parts of the movie 3:10 to Yuma (the original and the remake) were filmed in Bisbee.

Bisbee is just over 90 miles from Tucson. Take the Benson exit off Interstate 10 and follow the signs. Motorists will pass through Tombstone on the way.

Walking in the shadow of the legendary Chiricahua Chief Cochise

Monument to Cochise

If you’ve ever watched the Western movie, Broken Arrow, you’ll see the rugged country that the Chiricahua Apaches lived in.  Trails that started in the desert, led through forests and finally through magnificent rock formations of the Dragoon Mountains in southeastern Arizona. At the end of the trail was the stronghold of the Chiricahuas’ great leader, Cochise.


The movie stars Jeff Chandler as Cochise and James Stewart as Tom Jeffords, the only white man Cochise trusted. It is based on the real-life friendship the two men shared.

It’s possible to visit Cochise’s stronghold, if you have the stamina t o hike the five miles into it  (I didn’t). The trail to his stronghold starts at the Cochise Stronghold Campground, a small out-of-the-way campground operated by the U.S. Forest Service. The trail to the stronghold takes off from a shorter, 0.4-mile nature trail at the campground.

Beginning of Cochise and nature trails

Legend has it that Cochise is buried in the mountains around his stronghold, but no one alive now  knows where. Only his immediate family and Tom Jeffords knew where he was buried, and they are all dead.

The campground is open only from September 1 through May 31. While there’s plenty of room between camping spaces, the spaces aren’t very long, and are best suited to tent or pick-up truck campers. Trailers longer than 22 feet are not allowed.  Rigs need to be self-contained as hook-ups are not available. The campground has clean toilets, but potable water is not available.

The campground is located eight miles off of Highway 191, 12 miles off Interstate 10. Turn on Ironwood Road.  The road starts off paved, then turns into gravel for the last few miles. Three streams must be forded; bridges are not available.

Old Arizona mission now an historic site

Old mission church at Tumacacori

Religion and government form a compatible partnership at Tumacacori, the site of the first mission in what is now southern Arizona founded by the Jesuit priest, Francisco Kino. Its purpose was to serve the Pima Indians and convert them to Catholicism.

The mission was founded in 1691 under Spanish rule, though Father Kino was born in Italy to a noble family. Today, the mission ruins are a National Historic Site administered by the U.S. National Park Service. A few years later, Father Kino, known as “the padre on horseback,” would establish a mission at San Xavier del Bac, just south of Tucson. That mission is still a working Catholic church. Father Kino was not a permanent priest at either church, but road between all missions in this area, which is how he got his nickname.

Statue of Father Kino at park museum

The mission may have been established in the late 17^th century, but it wasn’t until the early 1800s that the crumbling church that sites there now was built. Parishioners wanted their church to be like the one at San Xavier. It was constructed in a style now known as “frontier baroque.”

The mission grounds, which offer a feeling of serenity, also include a cemetery, convent and heirloom orchard. If you’re there at the right time, you can watch as two women prepare tortillas the traditional way.

Tumacacori is located on Interstate 19 that runs between Tucson and Nogales. Take Exit 29 and follow the signs. The park opens daily at 9 a.m. It is closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas days.istorH 

Small Arizona town boasts impressive museums to a pair of singing cowboys

Willcox, Arizona, appears to be a town that life has pretty much forgotten. Several motels and lots of houses are boarded up in this community between Tucson and Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Sidewalks in the small downtown area roll up pretty early. Travelers who venture away from the freeway exit will find limited options for dinner.  Life, just as I-10 does, appears to have passed Willcox by.

But wait! Willcox is well worth a detour if you’re a fan of Western music. Tucked away on Railroad Avenue are museums devoted to two of the finest singing cowboys who ever strummed a guitar while riding the range: Rex Allen and Marty Robbins.

Rex Allen and Koko

Rex Allen is the hometown boy who made it to the big time, singing and riding his way across the West. He is probably the only cowboy who insisted his horse, Koko, receive star billing after him in the movie credits. In his later years, he narrated a host of Disney films, including Run Appaloosa Run because, one of my favorites because it was filmed in Omak, Washington, where I lived for four years.

The museum is filled with his costumes, movie posters and other memorabilia related to his entertainment career. There’s even a framed check he wrote to Field and Stream for a subscription in 1997, two years before he died. Across the street, at Railroad Park, is a statue of Rex Allen strumming on his guitar. The remains of his beloved Koko are buried just a few feet away.

The Willcox Cowboy Hall of Fame is located inside the Rex Allen Museum. It’s a room filled with dozens of pictures of local cowboys.

Some of the 71 albums Marty Robbins made

Two doors down from the Rex Allen Museum is the Friends of Marty Robbins Museum. Marty Robbins is another Arizona boy (he was born in Glendale, however) who made a name for himself in show business. It’s about half the size of the Allen museum, but just as impressive when you consider most of its contents came from the private collection of one woman, Juanita Buckley, and her son Shawn Ring.  

Robbins recorded 71 albums during his lengthy career, but is his signature song is El Paso. Posters from his movies cover the walls. One of his early hits had the lyrics, “a white sport coat and a pink carnation.” Sure enough there’s a white sport coat in the collection.

A highlight of this museum is a documentary on Marty Robbins’ career. It’s narrated by John Schneider and features some of the biggest names in country western music reminiscing about this talented singer.

Both museums are open on a limited schedule, but it’s worth rearranging your travel plans to visit them.