National Monument Bonanza
Updated: Jun 2, 2021
Well, we have been busy! Visited quite a few NPS sites across Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas over the past three weeks, as well as a visit to Papago Park in downtown Phoenix, and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West, in Scottsdale. We did miss a handful of sites due to them being too far out of the way, or not having enough time.
We visited, in chronological order:
Wupatki National Monument
Sunset Crater National Monument
Walnut Canyon National Monument
Tuzigoot National Monument
Montezuma’s Castle and Well National Monument
Petrified Forest National Park
El Morro National Monument
El Malpais National Monument
Petroglyph National Monument
White Sands National Park
Guadalupe Mountains National Park
Fort Bowie National Historic Site
Chiricahua National Monument
Saguaro National Park
Coronado National Memorial
Tumacacori National Historic Site
Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
Casa Grande Ruins National Monument
Tonto National Monument
I’ll share the National Parks in separate posts.
We stopped in Flagstaff, Tucson, and Phoenix as home bases while we daytripped to nearby sites. Flagstaff and Phoenix were AirBnB’s, while in Tucson we camped and cooked in the 100 degree heat. The AirBnBs were a welcome break from being out in the elements 24/7.
From Flagstaff, we stopped at Wupatki NM, Sunset Crater NM, Walnut Canyon NM, Tuzigoot NM, and Montezuma's Castle and Well NM.
We saw quite a few examples of indigenous settlements, all eventually abandoned by their inhabitants -- the legend of the Hopi people is that it was their destiny for all the tribes to eventually travel to each other and become a unified community.
Montezuma's Castle was striking due to where it was perched -- I can't imagine having to haul water up there! Montezuma's well was remote from the dwelling, and the indigenous people used it to irrigate their crops (but it was not potable, filled with arsenic and leeches!)
Leaving our little AirBnB in Flagstaff, we drove to El Morro and was able to grab a first
come first serve campsite. We hiked the Inscription trail and Mesa trail which was actually an excellent hike. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from this one (no fee for entry or camping), but the inscriptions were amazing. Beautiful script, Spanish, chiseled block serif. And an incredible year round snowmelt/rainwater pool that never dries – a source of water for people coming through for thousands of years, and a reason to mark their passing. The hike along the mesa passed a pueblo and was a lot of fun hopping along the slickrock.
The pool of water was very peaceful and even had small fish! There were probably thousands of inscriptions on the rock face -- one even had a poem describing someone as a 'gentleman', but a later traveller scribbled the word out!
The next day we’d work our way down to White Sands, stopping by El Malpais and Petroglyph NMs before arriving in Oliver Lee Memorial state park. El Malpais was unexpectedly large and super cool. More lava flows – we did the El Calderon trail which passed lots of lava, including lava tubes, and along the rim of El Calderon crater. Then we drove to the sandstone bluff overlook (more lava) and the Ventana Arch, which was gigantic.
We continued on to ABQ and stopped by Petroglyph National Monument. This one was kind of unusual as it was inside the city. We did part of the Piedras Marcadas trail and saw a handful of petroglyphs. The sign said there were over 400, but we must have not been looking very well. We had another 3.5 hours of driving ahead of us, but stopped for iced coffee first (decaf for me) and arrived outside White Sands just before sunset. To our delight, it was warm! We ate PBJs and then we both laid wide awake for hours from the Starbucks.
We stopped at Fort Bowie National Historic Site, where we got our first real taste of hiking in the Arizona heat. It was humid, hot, and miserable. This site stands in memory of a totally ridiculous army - indigenous conflict where the army thought the nearby tribe kidnapped someone, but in fact it wasn't them, but that didn't stop 20 years of fighting and occupation.
We continued on to Chiricahua, where we spent the night. This place was incredible! Visually, similar to Bryce Canyon's hoodoos, but these are volcanic ash. We asked the ranger for hiking options less than 10 miles, and she suggested 'The Big Loop'. She described the elevation gain/loss for each section to us and it came out to around 1,000' -- okay, that's fine. We start the hike in the morning and it's incredibly beautiful.
As the hike wore on we started to question why it seemed just as hard as the last long hike we did, Guadalupe Peak (8.69mi, 2,890' of gain). Well, we finished, and turns out the elevation gain was closer to 2,000', not 1,000' like the ranger said. 🙃
The hike was pretty great overall though -- it traversed quite a few different areas with the formations varying slightly in color and texture.
We then travelled to our next basecamp outside Saguaro National Park, where our campsite was beautifully located amongst the most delightful plants I've ever seen -- the saguaro. We daytripped to Coronado National Memorial, which was near the border, where we encountered an Aerostat for the first time. Apparently CBP has a handful of these stationed along the US-Mexico border. They have about a 200' mile radar range and are meant to prevent illegal air travel across the border. We didn't know what the heck it was until I googled white fish balloon Fort Huachuca.
Coronado NM commemorates Coronado's march to find the seven cities of gold that totally credible shipwrecked survivors described. There was also a non-technical cave that you could enter which was super cool. NPS said bring at least two sources of light -- we brought five (two headlamps, a flashlight, and our phones), and it was almost inadequate to find our way around inside the cave. It was about 600' deep, but we only made it a maybe a third of the way in before we got creeped out being all alone in the darkness and we calmly made our way back to the scramble out.
The next day we visited Tumacacori (too mah cockerie), a Jesuit and Franciscan mission where Europeans attempted to convert the indigenous people. It always amazes me the effort humans have put into creating religious architecture.
We then landed in Phoenix, where we got to see my cousin Sarah! She took us to Papago Park inside the city, to the famous Hole in the Rock. I've been here in a video game, but didn't know it existed in real life!
We had three more day trips from Phoenix planned -- Organ Pipe Cactus NM, Casa Grande Ruins NM, and Tonto National Monument. Organ Pipe was on the border, like Coronado. We could see the border wall from the hike...
Vitali got caught by jumping cholla! Although this piece looked pretty desiccated.
The Tonto lower cliff dwelling was located at the top of a short, but steep walk. We didn't have cell reception so we tried for a course record (but there ended up not being a segment...). Average 20% grade, .4 miles, we did it in about 7 minutes. This structure you could actually walk around inside in, which was cool. Once again -- what poor sucker had the job of schlepping water? An old man asked "is it sexist to ask if carrying the water up was woman's work?"
Phew! That was a busy few weeks, and we put about 2,000 miles on Numa. I also found the time to fly back to Denver for the day to get a filling adjusted and see my co-workers (Hi Rogues!). The TSA dropped my laptop on the tile floor though.
I am terribly behind on these posts but should be able to get some of them out soon, as the parks we visited were smaller in scope. Stay tuned!
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