Cochise Stronghold

Author's Comments

I came to the Stronghold the first time looking for stars and found something else first. Granite. The kind of granite that does not behave like rock so much as architecture - domes and spires rising out of the Dragoons in shapes that read almost human at certain hours. In the last twenty minutes before full dark, the formations turn into pure silhouette against a sky that has not yet committed to night, and that is the photograph I keep chasing here. The west side is easier. There is a campground, a trailhead, a way to be here without a high-clearance vehicle. The east side is where the silence gets serious, and where the sky goes properly black. I have done both. I prefer the east when I have the time and the right tires. What this place asks of you is patience and warm clothing. October nights in the Dragoons drop further than the desert below, and the wind finds its way through the rocks in a way that surprises people who came up from the valley in shirtsleeves. Plan for it. The reward is a sky that runs from horizon to horizon without a single town glowing on the edge of it, the Milky Way arching directly over granite that has stood here longer than anything I can usefully imagine. Cochise is said to be buried somewhere in these rocks. No one knows where. I find I photograph differently knowing that, slower and with more attention, which is probably the right way to photograph anywhere. Come for the stars. Stay for the hour just before them, when the light goes and the stone holds its shape against what is left of the sky.

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