Fall Road Trip 2023 - Tucson to Portal

After leaving Tucson, we continued to head east and stopped at another Desert Museum in Rodeo, New Mexico. The Chiricahua Desert Museum is considerably smaller than the Arizona-Senora one and we both thought it was a bit run down since we'd visited there several years ago. The Apache Museum is right next door so we stopped in there as well for some interesting history of the area. 

We then headed back into Arizona and camped near Portal for a couple of nights to do some hiking in the Chiricahua Wilderness, Coronado National Forest. It's an area well know for bird watching. 

We got there late in the afternoon so just did a short hike (~20 minutes) from the campground up to Vista Point.

The following day we hiked Basin Trail which was an 11km reasonably level hike. We've been avoiding anything too strenuous as I've had a really bad cough since about 3 days into this trip. (Today I went to a medi-clinic and learned that I have bronchitis and was prescribed medications to help get better.) 

The first things we noticed was all the bear scat on the trail! Thankfully, it looked quite old and, with it being November, we hoped all the bears are in hibernation. Being the curious one though, Andrew had to take a closer look at what they eat. Juniper berries seems to be a mainstay. 

What do bears eat?

There are also a variety of cactus along the trail and I learned the hard way that you really have to pay attention to them. One like in the photo below stabbed me in the thigh as I walked by it! Despite not drawing blood, it felt like it went in a long way and the whole muscle hurt for a few hours afterwards and hurt to touch for a couple days after. 

We had great views of the valley for most of the way and the fall colours were beautiful. 

At the campground the next morning, we filled one of our water jugs and this little acorn woodpecker liked the fresh water he got from the grate. 

We then hiked a portion of South Fork Trail. We didn't get far as we'd planned as there was another very cooperative woodpecker that we spent most of our time getting closer and closer photos of. 

We saw many deer while we were in this area. They didn't seem too bothered by human activity.