The Chiricahua Mountains are stark and a bit foreboding, but also a forest oasis in the high desert lands of southeastern Arizona. This is the land of basin and plain, where a continental collision pushed the land up and broke it, tipping sections to create lines of ridges. Erosion sculpted the ridges and made level plains of their debris between them.

The Chiricahuas are a bit different in that volcanic activity and a huge explosion covered the top of its ridge with thousands of feet of hot ash that cooled to form glassy rocks. Water has since eroded out much of the softer material leaving bizarre columns and balanced rocks towering above deep canyons.

The peaks catch clouds and spawn rain and snow and so support a rich though patchy oak/pine/cedar forest surrounded by desert between the Sierra Madre Mountains to the south and the Rocky Mountains to the north. The plants and animals of these mountains are therefore a unique mixture. We find birds here such as the elegant quetzal and the Mexican chickadee that are found nowhere else in the United States.

Portal, about ten miles up into the range, across the Arizona border is a birders’ mecca. We are here a couple of months early but still had fun exploring the high country and finding new life birds. We also visited Paradise, but most of its population left when the silver ran out.

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