Fort Bowie National Monument

Wednesday, 12 Dec

We woke up to sunny, 39 degrees.  We were surprised that once the thermostat setback from 68 degrees to 60 degrees at 9:30pm, the Alde heater did not come on until 5:30 when it was programmed to go back to 68 degrees.  In other words, the heat loss from Sprinty was less than 8 degrees from 9:30pm to 5:30am, 8 hours.

Our first stop of the day was to checkout Indian Bread Rocks Recreation Area.  As we headed south from Bowie, we passed more pecan and pistachio groves, as well as two longhorn cattle grazing right along the road.  A few miles south of town, we turned off onto a three mile dirt road off the main road.  Managed by BLM, they permit free dispersed camping there.  We learned of the site from Dave and Irene of Carey on Vagabond where were there recently:  https://youtu.be/58g5zO-22Yc

When we arrived, we could not find any sort of established trail or a sign indicating where the bread rocks were.  We hiked around for about 15-20 minutes in the rocks, which were pretty cool.  

When we got back to the camping area, we wandered to where some RVs were camped to check out how we might have set up if we were to stay there.  While wandering, we met two different campers, which were both from Saskatchatoon.  When we mentioned our next stop was the Fort Bowie National Monument, they both offered helpful comments for visiting.

The access road to Fort Bowie National Monument turned to a gravel road.  We parked at the trailhead of the 1.5 mile hike to the ruins of Fort Bowie.  Fort Bowie  was located at Apache pass, which was along the shortest distance between El Paso and Tucson.  

Apache Springs was also located there, and the source of water made this an important route for people and animals pulling wagons.  It was also an area of hostilities with the Chiricahua Apache for several decades in the mid-to-late 1800s.  The Army established a fort there to protect settlers and deal with hostile Indians.

We hiked to the ruins, and stopped in at the Visitor Center.  We returned via the ridge trail which offered some great views of the area.

Apache Pass lost its significance with the surrender of Geronimo, and the location of the railroad through a pass to the north between Bowie and Wilcox.  Unlike people and animals pulling wagons, trains did not need to have a source of water at the pass.

After returning to Sprinty, we continued on the unpaved road over Apache Pass to the valley on the other side.  Our next stop was the Chiricahua National Monument, Land of Standing Up Rocks.  We visited the Visitor Center and learned about the history of the National Monument.  We took the drive (originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps) to the summit, an elevation gain of 1,500 feet.  At the summit it was very windy, and about 50 degrees.  Not freezing cold, but chilly.  

The rock formations were stunning.  It reminded us a lot of our visit to Bryce Canyon in February 2017 - rock formations like the hoo doos, only less red.  We would get out at the overlooks, look at the vistas, take some photographs, then get back into Sprinty to warm up.  While there were several interesting trails, we were hiked out from the 3 mile Fort Bowie hike and our hike at Indian Bread Rocks.  We’ll have to do them another time.

We then headed south to the town of Douglas located at the Unites States-Mexico border.  We stopped at the Visitor Center to get some brochures on several of the places we planned to visit, then made our way to the Douglas Golf Club & RV Park to camp for the night.