Cochise Stronghold

Left New Mexico feeling like we had a great time and had seen a new and beautiful part of the country. We drove to Roper Lake State Park near Safford, AZ, for a night to take showers and take on water. But mostly so we could get a signal and watch the Broncos-Chargers game on NFL rewind. The signal wasn't strong enough to watch it, but could listen. What a comeback!

Left early this morning for Chiricahua Mountains in the Coronado National Forest. Along the way we see a little brown sign that said "Cochise Stronghold," and thought, "hmmm." So we drove there, with Vicky reading as much as she could about it on our iPad before we lost a signal.

http://www.cochisestronghold.com/

We drove 9 miles off of the highway, much of it along a dirt road.






Got to a very nice, small campground, paved even.


And with bear-proof trash cans, my latest criterion for a nice campground.




There were some nice trails off of this campground--a short nature trail, a short historical trail, and the Cochise Trail to his final stronghold.







Since we had driven 120 miles today and had to spend time setting up camp, we didn't think we could make it all of the way to the West Stronghold, so contented ourselves with the goal of reaching the Stronghold Divide.

The trail was fun, through canyons. It was a steady climb, with beautiful views.










One could easily see why the stronghold was impregnable.

Cochise Spring:




We continued walking up and through the canyon until we reached an old dam called "Halfmoon Tank."













If the engravings in it are to be believed, it was built in 1952. Looks to be in perfect shape. Now we are curious about who built it, why, etc.



We hiked up and in another mile before reaching the divide.








Here we are, with a view behind us into the West Stronghold.



Stopping for lunch on the way down.


We saw a lot of lizards sunning themselves. A beautiful black in color.



There were also a lot of butterflies. Here is one that wanted its picture taken--the others flew away when I got too close. Thanks, pretty butterfly! Now you get to be on our blog!



It was sort of a moving hike, to think that these Apache Indians were walking this trail 150 years ago, trying their best, against insurmountable odds, to keep their way of life. But the forces of nature were against them--the overwhelming numbers of settlers who themselves had no where else to go, and who had been pushed by similar forces of nature into this hard land.

It is sad. A very different kind of hiking experience than we usually get. I'm glad we saw the sign on the highway.

Hike Report:  Cochise Stronghold to the Stronghold Divide

(Note that the elevation gain changes a bit when one disables the elevation correction.  Note also that, as is typical with both my hiking and biking Garmins, elevation gain does not equal elevation loss, even though we always start and stop in the same exact location;  I basically take an average of all of these figures to arrive at what I believe to be the best estimate of elevation gain.  It is probably accurate to within 50 feet or so, which is pretty good.  Usually it is within a few feet of elevation gains provided on the occasional trail map that reports elevation gains of hikes, which makes us feel confident in what we estimate when this information is not provided by trail maps.)