Howdy! And welcome to another episode of the almost world-famous Cactus Atlas.
Today, I'm entering deep inside the Chiricahua National Monument, hiking
what's known as the Big Loop: a sequence of trails that traverses all that is
wonderful about this area. If you want to find out what this hike is like, come
join me and let's go find out together.
I'm at the Echo Canyon trailhead parking lot. Our journey will begin here on this
trail. Most of the hiking trails of Chiricahua are located near the center
of the park. Today I'm hiking what's known as the Big Loop.
It's a configuration of trails which form an almost 10 mile loop through the
wilderness area representing the best of what Chiricahua has to offer.
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One thing that's kind of scary is we are entering a wilderness area.
Cougars, black bears, rattlesnakes, cactus and cliffs... and assistance is not always
immediately available. And yes, that does worry me slightly! Alright, let's start
this thing here. The first few steps of the trail... of the Big Loop, specifically
we're on the Echo Canyon Trail portion. Never really hiked here before and
the reason being is this is a very remote location, at least for me. This National
Monument is about four hours away from where I live. We're starting to see these
rock spires here off in the immediate distance. That is what we've come here for.
One thing that I love about the rocks here... they have this neon green lichen.
You can even see here starting to form in front of me, more of those with that
coloration on them. We're gonna be seeing a lot of that today here.
So just a quick little lesson in geology. 27 million years ago a volcano known as
the Turkey Creek volcano erupted and all of its ash fell and over time formed
what's known as rhyolite. You had the action of erosion, water freezing in the
cracks. Expanding, cracking, leaving these very interesting rock formations.
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The Chiricahua Apache refer to these as the "standing up rocks".
Chiricahua has also earned the nickname a "Wonderland of Rocks". And it truly is
a wonderland of rocks. Where's the last place you've been where you could see
stuff like that?
We're in between some big rock formations and this trail just bores right through
the middle of those and we exit out in the sunlight it looks like.
The further down we go, it's like we get deeper amongst these rock spires and
they just get taller and taller. Just look at how thin
some of these are and how those tops are just barely balanced up there!
You can see that's the bottom of this little canyon or ravine or whatever the
proper term is, and we're winding down the trail going off in this direction
here. My early on nervousness when you read about the warnings like there are
rabid animals in this area. Cougars, bears all that kind of stuff.
After you get deep in here, all of that worry just kind of melts away. You
can see how quickly the vegetation changed just by descending down. It went from
much less vegetation to just a little overgrown down here. I also hear bees and
a lot of buzzing I'm not quite sure where they're at but... now that's scary! I
actually see some water down here. Looks pretty nasty
I recently studied up on mountain lion footprints. I can't tell...
these are not very well formed, but do you see that there? And there?
I could see an animal coming down here to drink out of this water source.
Regardless, some kind of animal with decently sized footprints was here so
I'm going to continue to move on. We've now arrived at a decision point.
You have the Hailstone trail, which we're not doing. What we're gonna do though is
head off this way, which is part of the Big Loop. We want to take the Upper
Rhyolite trail, which is 1.1 miles to the next trail which I believe is the Sarah
Deming trail. So a little perspective for you we started on the other side of this
wall here, to descend... I'm assuming down into this canyon here.
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And a little perspective for you again. We traversed, I think down and around into
this canyon, and now we're on the other side. I don't know if this is a little bit
of a rockslide area. Certainly looks like a man-made thing to hold it steady I
suppose. We have a ways to go folks, we have a ways to go. Especially because I'm
going to be doing some of these additional loops which are off the main
trail. We want the Sarah Deming trail which takes us to the Heart of Rocks
loop, which I'm really excited about. That's very dark and shady. We're pretty
deep inside a canyon almost looks like we're gonna go through another canyon.
Oh yeah! We're standing on top of that rock slide that I pointed out.
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I hear people my guess is the Heart of
Rocks trail is very close, and people are a welcome sight at this point. I've been
wandering out here for a long time now without seeing anyone.
The Balanced Rock trail would be the next segment I take. It's part of the Big Loop.
But, part of the Big Loop does include the Heart of Rocks loop trail. I am gonna
do the Heart of Rocks loop, but I feel it's worthy of its own video, so do know
that I have published a video to the Heart of Rocks loop trail, and I'm gonna
put a link in the description down below so you can check that out. That's the
Heart of Rocks area, right there. I'm now departing the Heart of Rocks loop
portion, on the Big Balanced Rock trail. Big Balanced Rock. A thousand tons, 25 feet
high ,and 22 feet in diameter. Look at that! That is something else!
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Doesn't that remind you of an old Looney
Tunes cartoon? I can picture Roadrunner up there with a stick trying to pry
loose that big rock onto Wile E Coyote, who's down below. Alright, time for my
Instagram photo. "Duck Face", take two.
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There should be a trail to something
called Inspiration Point, if I didn't get off course. Inspiration Point trail, which
is an out-and-back trail, so we're going to come back the way we came.
I'm not sure why they call it Inspiration Point, but let's go find out!
My guess is with a name like Inspiration Point, I'm assuming we're gonna get some
really good views of some hoodoos. Look at that! That is beautiful! Now I can see
(I think) part of the trail that I started earlier this morning. You see
of all the switchbacks there? I believe that's the Upper Rhyolite portion of the
trail. You can even see in the distance the trail that goes back to the Visitor
Center, and just look straight ahead. Chiricahua is known as a "sky island". It's
part of a mountain range that comes out of the desert. The desert you see right
there. And the reason why this is called a "sky island" is very evident. Out of
that desolation rises these mountains and the vegetation, the habitats just
change extremely. In case you're watching this and you're planning a trip to
Chiricahua, you definitely want to make it out on foot to Inspiration Point. It
is not accessible by vehicle. And you will be rewarded with spectacular views.
Next up, the Mushroom Rock trail portion of the Big Loop. Okay, I just consulted my
map and the Mushroom Rock trail should be the second to last segment
that I have to do. It looks like it's 1.2 miles long. You know, five minutes ago maybe...
maybe 10, when I was up at the top before I had descended into this canyon here,
Hunt Canyon, I was remarking on just how fast the vegetation changes not knowing
that I was about to descend into this.
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Alright, so looking behind me, we came through all that mess. Pretty much
wrapped around on the other side of this big hill or canyon wall, all the way down
through there to where I stand now. So only one more mile to go on the Ed
Riggs trail. I have a feeling this Ed Riggs here is gonna be a son of a gun.
It's only point nine miles to where I need to go, but clearly, I have to climb up to
get out of here. Ed Riggs, you got me again! Look! Another human being! Oh it's so nice
to see a person.
[Music]
It's the final few steps of the Big Loop trail. I see the parking lot. We're so
close! Just steps away! Here we are! And... done!
Crushed it!
I did it! About ten miles of hiking. All throughout that wilderness
down there. I braved mountain lions. I braved bears. I braved rabid animals.
Now was it worth it? Here are my final thoughts about that. I would say from a
completionist perspective it's absolutely worth doing because I think
you get to sample everything here in Chiricahua. You literally walk on every
single trail with the exception of just a couple. You get to wander through so
many varied habitats and biological zones, if you will, and see so much
including the famous rock spires and hoodoos that is what Chiricahua
is really known for. But if you truly want to dig in deep, the
Big Loop... that's what you want to do. But wait, there's more! You didn't think we
were done yet, did you? The best part is about to happen. I'm gonna drive down to
the Visitor Center and claim the metal that they're supposed to be giving away
for doing that hike. I'm gonna get that dang metal! Okay, so I've made it now
down to the Visitor Center. I drove all the way the almost eight miles (I think) to
get back down here, and here's where I'm guessing I need to go to get that pin, so
I hope they don't disappoint me after all that. And... I got it! Check this out!
let's come over here to the sun. There it is.
Rock the Rhyolite.
It's the pen that I got for hiking over five miles at Chiricahua National
Monument. So in order to claim this beauty what I had to do is go into the
Visitor Center and there's a ranger sitting up front and you need to
validate and prove that you did it. So one way to validate it is each time you
get to a trailhead take a picture of it with your phone, or a selfie with the
sign in the background to prove it. The evidence is here, and it's gonna be on
YouTube. I earned this baby! Yeah! If you're new here please subscribe to our channel,
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Twitter, and Instagram, under the name Cactus Atlas. Well, I need
to seriously go sit down and relax and take it easy. Thanks for going on that
epic hike with me today! I loved having you, and I'm excited for you to join me
on my next journey right around the corner,
so until then, take it easy!
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