Travel Planner - Kartchner Caverns and Beyond
The best of southeastern Arizona:
Kartchner Caverns State Park |
Once your eyes readjust to the blinding glare of above-ground Arizona, you'll find that there is plenty more to do in this corner of the state. Just down the road from Kartchner Caverns lies Arizona's wine country, and around the towns of Sonoita and Elgin, you'll find several vineyards and wineries. You'll also find plenty of wide open spaces. These are Arizona's high plains and for more than a century have been some of the best cattle-grazing lands in the state. The area south of the eclectic little town of Patagonia once even stood in for Oklahoma in the famous movie musical of the same name.
East of Sonoita about 40 miles lies the most infamous town in the west-Tombstone, the town too tough to die. Not just a movie set, this is a real town with a real history and a real (well sort of) OK Corral. Although they've been paved over, the streets of Tombstone are the very streets down which Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp once staggered and swaggered. Also in the vicinity, scattered up and down the San Pedro River valley, are several ghost towns that just weren't tough enough to stay alive. Today such towns as Fairbank, Gleeson, Dos Cabezas, and Pearce are inhabited primarily by ghosts.
Ghosts of the cavalry and the African American buffalo soldiers are kept alive at nearby Fort Huachuca, just outside the burgeoning retirement community of Sierra Vista. South of Sierra Vista, at Ramsey Canyon, there's a Nature Conservancy preserve that is known among bird watchers for its 14 species of hummingbirds. In fact, the mountains throughout this region are full of rare birds, many of which reach the northern limits of their range here in southeastern Arizona.
A little farther south lies Coronado National Memorial, which is dedicated to the explorations of Franciso Vasquez de Coronado, who, between 1540 and 1542, marched through parts of what is now Arizona. Coronado was searching for gold, but it was actually copper that he should have been seeking in this area. Some 20 miles away stands the town of Bisbee, which in the late 19th century was the liveliest town between San Francisco and El Paso. Now the historic copper-mining town is full of art galleries and other eclectic shops, as well as plenty of artistic and individualistic residents.
North of Bisbee lie the Chiricahua and Dragoon mountains, rocky crags that were once home to Apache leaders Geronimo and Cochise. Today parts of these mountains are preserved as Cochise Stronghold (where Cochise is said to have been buried) and as Chiricahua National Monument, a breathtaking maze of huge boulders piled one on top of another. Northwest of the national monument lies Fort Bowie National Historic Site, which, in its isolation, does more to conjure up the wild west and the Indian Wars than any other historic site in the state.
Considering the bloody clashes that took place between the Apaches and the settlers in this region, it seems fitting that one of the finest museums of Native American culture would be located here. At the Amerind Foundation Museum, the heritage of the region's Apaches, as well as many of the state's other tribes, is chronicled through fascinating exhibits of artifacts collected from around the west. The museum is located just off I-10 between Willcox and Benson in picturesque Texas Canyon, an area strewn with huge eroded boulders.
The Route:
To reach Kartchner Caverns from Tucson, take I-10 east to Benson and then go south on Hwy. 90. From the caverns, continue south to Hwy. 82 and detour west to Sonoita and Patagonia. Backtrack to Hwy. 90 and continue south to Sierra Vista (spend the night in Hereford). From Sierra Vista, take Hwy. 92 south and then east via Coronado National Memorial to Bisbee (spend the night in Bisbee). From Bisbee, go east to Douglas and then north on Hwy. 191. At Sunizona, stay west on Hwy. 191 to visit Cochise Stronghold or go east on Hwy. 181 to reach Chiricahua National Monument. From the national monument, take Hwy. 186 to Willcox, passing the turnoff for Fort Bowie along the way. From Willcox, take I-10 west to Dragoon and the Amerind Foundation. Return to Tucson on I-10.
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