Hike of the Month

Like of the Month

We huddle in the car, watching the day's second monsoon storm batter the Chiricahua Mountains and erode our views of the rocky skyline into ghostly oblivion. "We'll be looking for intimate landscapes today," says my hiking accomplice, photographer Edward McCain.

If I were taking the pictures, I'd be looking for the road back to Tucson. Ed, however, is delighted by the rain. It means drama in the sky, glossy rocks and foliage, and a respite from troublesome brilliant sunlight/deep-shadow contrasts. If the weather breaks enough for us to leave the car, he says, there are good pictures to be had.

WHEN YOU GO

Eventually the downpour ends, and we plod onto the Echo Canyon Loop Trail, the Chiricahuas' most fascinating walk. The trail was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936-37, and in its 3.5 miles it passes stands of elegantly gnarled alligator juipers, jumbles of volcanic rhyolite eroded into grotesque spires and hoodoos, Echo Canyon, within the Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona, lies at about 6,000 feet elevation, so this is a good all-season trail without strenuous climbing.

To get there from Phoenix and Tucson, take Interstate 10 east to Willcox and then State Route 186 to the monument. Mileage from Phoenix is approximately 220; from Tucson, 110.

There is an admission charge of $3 at the monument. Maps and brochures on the monument's geology and biology are available at the visitors center.

For more information, write or call the Chiricahua National Monument, Dos Cabezas Route, Box 6500, Willcox, AZ 85643; (602) 824-3560.

and even seasonal waterfalls. Ed is the ideal trail companion. As a photographer and self-trained naturalist, he sees his surroundings more intently than I do and appreciates details in the landscape that I might not see.

MEANDERING ALONG THE CHIRICAHUAS' ECHO CANYON LOOP TRAIL

For example, he points out the striking color harmonics of an orange and black cicada clinging to a stalk of pale-yellow bear grass. "I'm the slowest person on a hike," he says. "You see so much more that way."

After half an hour's dawdling, we come across one of those "intimate landscapes:" a grotto of several rooms formed by a series of eroded apertures that look almost like gothic arches. A wedge of soft light filters in from a natural skylight, painting a small section of the grotto's floor. It has a distinctly medieval mood, like a twisting shadowy alley in an old Tuscan village. It's the overcast sky that lends it this vaguely spooky character; a bright sun would have burned away all the implication of mystery.

We dawdle some more, trying to see what weird characters we can imagine in the commotion of hoodoos poking out of the canyon's sloping walls. I find one that looks like a primitive African sculpture. Ed locates a near-perfect profile of E.T. and then several characters that have escaped from "The Simpsons."

"It's sort of like a three-dimensional Rorschach test," he observes. "You can see anything out here that you want to see."

At the trail register in the canyon's bottom, we learn a little about what our fellow hikers have seen. "Mysterious and reflective," one has written. Others: "Exquisite, in a gentle rain." "Perfect place to be in love." "Tubular (totally)." And finally, a comment as strange as the rock formations themselves: "Like a smoking crater on the mind!"

A few moments later, on the canyon floor, we encounter a lovely microenvironment: a miniature waterfall, courtesy of the day's earlier thunderstorms. It's pouring maybe a couple of quarts a minute through crevices in lichen-crusted boulders, and, while the sight is not particularly dramatic, the sound is incredible. The spaces between the boulders have accidentally formed resonant cavities, amplifying and shaping the sound of three distinct tinkling falls, and creatingquite literally music. Each has its own pitch and rhythm, and the three together form a counterpoint as complex and exquisite as anything Bach ever imagined.

It takes us two hours to negotiate this short easy trail. We haven't had a cardiovascular workout, but we've experienced one of southern Arizona's most spectacular landscapes in an intimate detail that eludes - I suspect many hikers. Rather than hiking, call this meaningful meandering.