So, my hiking buddies and I decided to hike in Chiricahua National Monument to close out our last weekend in south-east Arizona. Normally, I over-plan and over-pack, but after destroying my body with two consecutive weekends of over-16 mile hikes with at least 3,500 feet elevation change, I deliberately played it chill this time… too chill. I forgot my camera and realized it a good fifteen miles into our 100 mile drive taking us east on I-10 and about 45 minutes south of Wilcox, AZ (so in the middle of nowhere southeastern Arizona, you would never get to Chiricahua unless you knew where to find it in the first place).
Great. Epic Fail. The one time I wanted to concentrate on photography and not on my crazy acts of physical and manly prowess. So, I was stuck with taking photos with my iPhone. Now, granted, the iPhone is a marvelous camera… for a phone. But it was no replacement especially in the horrible back-lighting in which most of the rocks were situated that Saturday afternoon. I really needed good exposure control so I didn’t silhouette all my subjects.
Anyway, I had a few successes… not great by any stretch of the imagination but stuff I can remember for years later of a truly gorgeous place. Chiricahua is a magnificent bowl (think of a giant volcano crater about ten miles across and one thousand feet of gentle slopes, filled with the most awesome rock formations outside of Utah. It was commonplace to find massive 100-ton plus boulders perched precariously atop one square-foot of a rock pillars.
So, we took it easy and only hiked a little over 8 miles… and had some fun bouldering.
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