We are in the area to go into in the Dragoon Mountains on the Cochise Trail to explore the Cochise Stronghold. It is really close to our accomodation, about fifteen minutes away, with the trailhead in a public campground. There is a fee required but our annual pass is covering it so that is not a problem. What is a problem is that it is hotter outside than we expected even relatively early in the morning. But still we decide to go so we park, the only car for day use, and start looking for the trail.
There are some nice views and we really enjoy them as we start looking around for the trailhead starting from parking.
The campground is quite shady which makes the temperatures tolerable so we decide to go and explore and see how long we can resist hiking on the trail. That we find after some searching, it is a past a bridge over no water and then continues into the mountain.
Unfortunately as we exit the campground area the vegetation changes also and there are no more trees providing shade to the trail. It is a beautiful trail with great views but not the best to do in the higher temperatures today.
As we climb we pass multiple building remains, some clearly from mining some maybe from some homesteading along the way. Still it is a fun place to take a short break and eat some snack before moving on.
As we get higher there are some nice rock formations along the way, we can see why this was the stronghold of Cochise, the famous Apache war leader, as he was fighting against American invaders.
But about halfway up it is getting too hot and we decide to return back to parking and retreat to the safety of AC. Even the birds agree, all of them are staying in the shade as we return and are not really that excited to be here. Back at the parking we cool off a bit and then we decide to go to a nearby museum, Amerind Museum, to enjoy the cooler climate controlled environment.
