Cover: Columnar rhyolite in the Balanced Rock area.
CHIRICAHUA
NATIONAL MONUMENT
Weirdly beautiful pinnacles and columns eroded in volcanic rocks high in a forested range, which forms a mountain island in a desert sea.
The National Park System, of which this area is a unit, is dedicated to conserving the scenic, scientific, and historic heritage of the United States for the benefit and enjoyment of its people.
Unbelievably tall and slender pinnacles, startling likenesses of giant beasts and men, grotesque and weird figures such as might inhabit another world—all these and many more, carved by Nature in volcanic rock, are crowded into 17 spectacular square miles of ridge and canyon on the west flank of the Chiricahua Mountains.
Rising steeply from the grasslands of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico, the Chiricahuas present a verdant, forested island in a brown sea of desert. Many varieties of trees, shrubs, and flowering herbs clothe steep canyon walls. Shady glens, alive with birds, are frowned upon by rows of strange massive spires, turrets, and battlements in this fascinating wonderland of rocks.