🌅 The “Wonderland of Rocks” Is Now a National Park

SOURCE

U.S. National Park Service

WHAT TO KNOW

• Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona has been redesignated as Chiricahua National Park, bringing the nation’s total number of national parks to 64. The 12,000-acre park, nicknamed the “Wonderland of Rocks,” is known for its towering rock spires formed by a cataclysmic volcanic eruption around 27 million years ago. Located around 120 miles east of Tucson, the park hosts 17 miles of hiking trails, some 200 bird species, and a variety of diverse plant life. Chiricahua (pronounced cheer-uh-KAH-wuh) is the fourth smallest national park and the first new park since 2020. It’s also a certified International Dark Sky Place.

WHY IT MATTERS

• The park sits at the intersection of four major ecosystems: the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Madre mountain range, and the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts. It also protects part of the Chiricahua Mountains, one of Arizona’s “sky islands.” These isolated mountain ranges stretch from southeastern Arizona to northern Mexico, rising thousands of feet above the deserts that surround them. The unique plants and animals living in the mountains can’t survive in the surrounding deserts; thus, by analogy, the mountains are “islands” surrounded by desert “seas.”

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Human history at Chiricahua stretches back at least 12,000 years, when Paleoindians (i.e., the first humans to inhabit North America) used the area to hunt big game. Hunter-gatherers then occupied the region for around 4,500 years, taking advantage of the resources found throughout the valley floors and surrounding mountains. The land later became part of the Chiricahua Apache territory until they were forcibly displaced to Florida and eventually moved to other states by the U.S. government. For seven months in 1885, the area was home to members of the U.S. Army’s 10th Cavalry, better known as some of the original Buffalo Soldiers.