Bonita Creek at Chiricahua

Author's Comments

The Chiricahuas are a sky island, which means you climb out of grassland into something that has no business existing in southern Arizona - a creek, real trees, the sound of water moving through stone in a state where water mostly does not. Bonita Creek runs the lower canyon and the cypress and sycamore lean over it in a way that filters the morning light into something closer to what you would expect in a coastal forest than a desert range. I came here in late April expecting to pass through and ended up staying most of the morning. The light is the thing. Around seven, after the sun has cleared the eastern ridge but before it has dropped fully into the canyon floor, the gaps in the canopy throw soft columns down onto the creek bed and the trunks of the sycamores catch sidelight in a way that makes their bark look almost luminous. This is detail country more than wide-vista country. Work close. The texture of cypress against running water, a single shaft of light on wet stone, the particular green of oak leaves that have not yet hardened into summer. If you are patient and quiet, the wildlife arrives. The elegant trogon nests up here and people travel some distance to see one. I have not photographed one well and I am not sure I will. But the Coues deer move through the creek corridor at dawn and they are less skittish than you would expect. The campground makes early access easy. Most mornings you will have the creek to yourself, which is the real argument for coming this far east.

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