Pickle Power: Kartchner Caverns

Kartchner Caverns State Park is a few miles south of Benson, AZ, on Hwy. 90. Even though we’re only 40 miles northeast of Patagonia, the desert is different. This is Cochise country (as well as Cochise County) and the Dragoon Mountains where the Apaches hid out for years in the late 1800s are visible across the expansive valley that is the setting for the campground. Towering buttes rise behind the park.

I walked the Foothills Loop Trail at the campground two mornings in a row. Rated “moderate to difficult,” it’s a rocky, up- and- down, narrow path that skirts the side of a tall hill to get to an even taller one - a challenge for a balance-impaired bursitis sufferer – all the more reason to feel an Olympic elation once I’d crossed the finish line.

We found Don and Judy from Boise Idaho at Kartchner. We had met them first at Patagonia Lake State Park when they spotted our Springer. They have two, Buddy and Beau, both of them rescued last spring. Don and Judy are also experiencing their first year of retirement in an RV driving around the southwest. We were happy to share road stories and form our own small group of Springer’s Anonymous.

A few of 1000 steps in Bisbee

Our second day at Kartchner we drove south to Bisbee, an old mining town turned hippie/funky/artsy perched on steep hills. We were glad we were driving the Gherkin, not the Pickle, as we climbed the grade to the town (Bisbee elevation: 5530 ft.) and as we wound through the streets looking for parking places. After lunch at Contessa’s we headed northeast out of town to McNeil and the Arizona Fish and Game Refuge on the south end of the Whitewater Draw. There, thousands upon thousands of sand hill cranes spend the winter months – truly an impressive sight.