We went to Chiricahua National Monument today, about 36 miles south of Willcox. The place is spectacular. It’s the result of the Turkey Creek volcano eruptions of some 27 million years ago. The geological make-up has caused it to erode in columns and hoodoos all over the place. The volcanic eruptions were massive……1000 times the size of Mt St Helens……with a caldera 12 miles across and 5000 feet deep. It erupted nine times, spewing out enough ash to create a 2000 foot layer all around. It’s hard to get one’s mind around those kinds of numbers.
It was the most gorgeous day you can imagine. The wind finally laid down to a tolerable amount, the sun was out, and it was a perfect temperature. What great luck after so many days with howling gales! Southeastern Arizona is a lot prettier than southern NM and northwest Texas. It’s rolling grasslands with better vegetation than NM and TX which are flat as a pancake with mesquite trees and scrubby dry creosote bushes all hogging their own little piece of turf. Even the yuccas and agaves and sotol look better here. They probably get a bit more water.
Close-up of rock formations in Rhyolite Canyon on scenic drive. How many millions more years will it take to knock that leaning rock off its perch?
Looking west across the Sulphur Springs Valley to the Dragoon Mountains from Massai Point at the top of the scenic drive.
Overlooking gorge at Massai Point. Mid-day sun is not good for picture-taking so you can’t see the gorgeous blue sky.
Formation named Cochise Head. Really does look like a man’s profile. It’s a fitting name since this was his prime territory, home of the Chiricahua Apaches.
Faraway Ranch, home of the Erickson family, the first white settlers in the canyon. Emma bought a two-room cabin there in 1886 and when she married Neil in 1888 they moved to the 160 acre tract. They struggled with ranching but it couldn’t support them. Neil was an excellent carpenter so went to Bisbee to build houses. Emma went too but hated it and only lasted six months. She went home to the ranch and ran it while Neil worked elsewhere. He was gone for months at a time so she must have been a tough and hard-working woman. In 1903 he became the first forest ranger for the Chiricahua Forest so he was able to stay home. They had three children, all of whom helped to run the place. The oldest daughter Lillian was the one who eventually named it Faraway Ranch because it was “so God-awful far away from everything.” Lillian became the driving force in running the cattle ranch and then turning it into a guest ranch where people came from all over to experience the Wonderland of Rocks. We don’t know where they put everyone but they fed anywhere from 30 to 100 people at a time on their home-grown and home-farmed food. Lillian’s husband Bill Riggs had an engineering degree from MIT and led CCC crews in building a road and trails throughout the area in the 1930’s. The second daughter was the only one who had children (the other two raised step-children)…..it was one of Hildegarde’s daughters who pushed to get the area recognized and protected as a national monument. In the 1970’s the heirs sold their remaining land and all the buildings to the park service. Everything in the house is original……it all belonged to Neil and Emma and their children’s families including many family pictures and an 1870’s heirloom quilt made for Emma by her sisters as a going-away gift.
Lillian must have been just as tough as her mother……she started going blind in her 20’s and by 54 was totally blind and going deaf. She continued to run the cattle ranch and the guest ranch, learned to use a typewriter so she could answer her own mail, played cards and Scrabble using braile markings, and continued riding her horses while refusing to let anyone else hold the reins unless SHE deemed it too dangerous. She also told Bill when she married him that she was too busy running the ranch to have children, that she would raise his children (his first wife must have died) but not have any of her own. It sounded kind of arrogant when the ranger said it but once I found out the timeline it made sense. She and Bill dated briefly when she was 19 but the next year he married someone else. Bill and Lillian didn’t marry until she was 35 and had been running the family business for years. I can certainly understand her not wanting to have children at that point. The family’s heirs are still in the area……they (one or more, don’t know how many) have a ranching business on 16,000 acres of land nearby. With the park service protecting the property, they will always be able to see and enjoy the land they grew up on and loved so much.
It’s not only an extremely beautiful place, but a historically
interesting one too.
View of the Chiricahua Mountains from the ranch.
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