March 20, 2018

We had a nice night’s sleep below Indian Bread Rock. We heard an owl hooting several times last night but it stopped when I put my ear plugs in, or more likely they worked well. Since we went to bed a little after 7 PM, we both woke up with the sunrise about 0645. This made for a relaxing morning as we planned to be out of camp by 0915 to get to the Fort Bowie Trailhead in time for a Ranger talk at 1000. The sun warmed things up nicely and we were able to sit and have coffee and an apple turnover for breakfast. We broke camp, took advantage of the nearby pit toilet and drove the 3 miles of Happy Camp Road back to the pavement of Apache Pass Road.

Trail to Fort Bowie

We arrived at the Fort Bowie National Historic Site trailhead at 0935 and waited for the ranger to arrive. The Fort and visitor center is 1.5 miles from the trailhead and you must walk to it unless you are handicapped or otherwise unable to hike there. In that case, there is a special access dirt road which brings you to the fort. Before we left home, I looked up the calendar for the park, and luckily for us, they do ranger guided walks to the fort on Tuesday mornings. So here we are waiting for our ranger tour guide. While we wait, we spot a small herd of mule deer just across the ravine from us.

Butterfield Stage Stop Ruins

The ranger arrives a little before 1000 and we start out on time with just one other couple. Along the way 3 other people join us. She does a good job of telling the stories of the area and the history of Apache Pass, Apache Spring, the Butterfield Stage Company, and Fort Bowie. This was the hangout of the Chiricahua Apache, and their chief was the famous Cochise. Later, Geronimo also hid out in the area. The history of the area was interesting, beginning with the Spanish explorer Coronado and then the short-lived Butterfield Stage, delivering mail from St Louis to California in the lightning speed of 24 days, to the tie in with the civil war, and finally the large fort protecting Apache Spring. We reach the fort 2 hours later and historically wiser. I go inside the visitor center and ask for a pin, something that I just discovered the parks are giving out. In this park, if you hike 3 miles or more you can get a Fort Bowie pin. In our next stop, we have to hike 5 miles to qualify. When we leave the fort, we take a different route back. this route climbs a hill which gives a great overview of the site and lets us appreciate how large the fort was.

Yucca With Seed Stalk

The hill side is also covered with numerous blooming ocotillo ranging from small to very large. There is also many very large century plants with seed pods extending 25 feet or more in height. We switchback down the hill and rejoin the trail we cam in on. Before we know it we are back at the road and our vehicle. We travel down 8 miles of dirt road and head south towards Chiricahua National Monument. We have reserved a campsite here for two nights and when we enter the park, we are glad we did as a sign tells us the campground is full. We stop at the visitor center, get some hiking information, and head to the campground. We had reserved site 4 based on pictures and it does not disappoint. It has a picnic table, grill, nice tent pad, food storage locker, is quite large and surrounded by shade giving trees. Very nice indeed.

Our New Home

We get our tent set up and by the time we are through, it is happy hour. Chips, salsa and a beer make for a relaxing late afternoon. Carol is being nice to me so the company is not bad either. Later on we have dinner which consisted of tamales that we bought in Tucson. They were very tasty. After dinner, we take a stroll around the campground and see a trailer that looks about the size we are thinking about. The owners are sitting outside and we ask them what size it is and tell them we are looking at them. This leads to them inviting us in to look at it and showing us around. That leads to us talking for over an hour and Carol setting up happy hour tomorrow with them. Their names are Bruce and Kim and they are from Seattle but now living in the small town of Florence, Arizona. We return to our camp and have a fire as I have brought firewood with us. After the fire burns out, we settle in for the night and go to sleep. It does not matter that it is only 8 PM. Good night.