U&Me Hike

 On Monday, we went to Chiricahua National Monument for some serious hiking. We had intended on doing a loop that we thought was 7.3 miles but ended up actually being 9.5 miles. We did figure that out before we started hiking and decided that we still wanted to do The Big Loop. (The Big Loop basically strings together a bunch of shorter hikes to make a big loop around the upper section of the park.) There was a lot of elevation change on the hike as we went up and down canyons. At the end of the day, we went on the Massai Point Nature Trail to bring our total distance for the day to 10 miles.

Looking into the canyon on the Echo Canyon Trail.

Look at all those hoodoos!

There was bright green lichen on a lot of the rocks.

About half a mile into the hike, we came to the Echo Canyon Grottoes which were fun to explore.

U really liked seeing all the striations created by the layers of rock.

Wall Street.

Panoramic with Me. This is still on the Echo Canyon trail.

Me and U on the Upper Rhyolite Canyon trail.

Wow, that's tall!

Our kids would love this "little cave" on the Sarah Deming trail.

View up at the hoodoos from the Sarah Deming trail. We climbed over 1000 feet vertically from the lowest point on the Upper Rhyolite trail to the end of the Sarah Deming trail. It was quite the workout!

View of Big Balanced Rock from the Sarah Deming trail.

After the Sarah Deming trail, we hiked the Heart of Rocks loop which had a lot of cool rocks and spectacular views.

Pinnacle Balanced Rock

Old Maid

Camel Head

Amazing views! This is where we ate lunch.

Just wow!

Monkey Head (as named by Me)

More amazing views over the valley.

Duck on a Rock

A couple of photos into the Heart of Rocks area.

Kissing Rocks

Such bright green!

Big Balanced Rock

We came across these dancing trees on the Inspiration Point Trail.

U signing in the journal at Inspiration Point.

The views and some selfies from Inspiration Point. It was really pretty and we ended up spending quite a bit of time there.

Me on the Mushroom Rocks Trail. We enjoyed this section down in the canyon. It seemed peaceful.

U hiking out on the Ed Riggs trail.

Me surveying the landscape.

A few photos from the Massai Point Nature Trail.

We got good gas mileage on our drive back to Willcox.

We had dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant.

The planets were so bright in Willcox. You notice how bright the city lights are here and yet the three planets still easily stand out. Venus especially, which is right by the moon, was so bright!