A cave to explore without a guide or tour? YES please!
The Coronado National Memorial has one road running through it with about 6 trails. Eager to explore a cave on our own, we drove to the parking lot for the Cave Trail. The trail is only a half mile, but it is all uphill. At the entry point, I put on my headlamp got the flashlight out and basically went down the rocks on my butt. Once at the bottom, it was sandy/dirt smooth. We only explored for maybe 30 minutes and took only a handful of pictures with a smartphone.
There were no others on the hike up or in the cave when we arrived, although one person started to descend while we were in a back corner of the cave, but they left before us, and we saw one person hiking to the top on our way down. Having this quiet time to ourselves made the experience even more enjoyable.
The monument is 20 miles south of Sierra Vista, Arizona and borders Mexico and is free to visit.
Leave a Reply