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Crossroads in the Chiricahuas





By 4:00 a.m. we were on the road. Heading south from Phoenix, the permanent city lights gave way to a comforting darkness. Our target was the Chiricahua Wilderness. The wilderness and the surrounding national monument are known for their towering rock pinnacles. Fittingly, but perhaps apocryphally, the Apache name for the area translates to “The Land of Standing Rocks.” But the Chiricahua Mountains also host the dramatic biological crossroads of the Chihuahuan and Sonoran deserts, and the Sierra Madre and Rocky Mountain ranges. The result is rich biodiversity where towering ponderosa pine and Engelmann spruce stand happily among Soap tree yucca, prickly pear, sycamores, and oaks. Among the Chiricahua’s rare bird species are the elegant trogon and blue throated hummingbird. Deer, mountain lion, black bear and coatimundis also ply the precipitous canyons.

Passing Wilcox with the sun brightening the horizon, the rolling Sonoran desert surrendered to a sea of golden grassland. Thin herds of cattle stirred in the dawn glow, and tiny trails of smoke rose from far flung homesteads. Soon, we sighted the Chiricahua’s enormous rhyolite columns still draped in snow on their northern flanks. Our progress slowed by dirt roads, we stopped to admire a group of white tailed does as a hawk traced spirals overhead.

On that morning, our group of AWC volunteers was gathering for its final trail restoration trip in the Chiricahua Wilderness. Trails within the wilderness were heavily impacted by the 2011 Horseshoe fire and subsequent flooding, causing deadfall, overgrowth and erosion. On three prior occasions, AWC volunteers overcame rugged terrain and at least one sudden blizzard to progress up Hoovey Canyon, restoring its thickly overgrown and sometimes unidentifiable trail. Using only hand tools, we continued to cut, saw and otherwise clear the trail so that hikers and wildlife observers could once again enjoy this portion of Arizona’s unique wilderness.

Later, as we drove back towards Phoenix, I considered how the Chiricahua Wilderness had played host to a different kind of crossroads that weekend. Although AWC’s projects like the one in the Chiricahuas may be small in scale individually, the combined impact of AWC’s projects is immensely important for the stewardship of our public lands. As seen in recent events across the country and in Arizona, rhetoric over public land usage in the West is increasingly heated. These policy discussions often overlook the details of management, maintenance and inventories of public lands. Those responsibilities—the physical work involved in the stewardship of our public lands—increasingly frequently fall to nonprofit and volunteer groups. For now, Arizona’s 4.5 million acres of designated wilderness areas are in good hands because of the positive and meaningful work of AWC. I look forward to participating in future AWC projects, not only because they are a good excuse to get out and explore, but because they are an opportunity to maintain and protect our public lands for generations to come.

 

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-Arizona Wilderness Coalition mission statement