Eastern Arizona & Western New Mexico

In late April and early May 2009 we made an eight-day trip to the mountains of eastern Arizona and then to Silver City, NM, and on to Ft. Bowie, AZ. Mark joined us and was our tour guide, especially as we explored Silver City and Ft. Bowie.

We stayed in a time-share cabin at Pinetop, AZ, at about 7,000 feet elevation. Our cabin was a pleasant surprise. It was very well appointed on the inside and quite spacious for the three of us. It was certainly a wonderful home base from which to spoke out on our several excursions.

Our first day of adventure was down to Ft. Apache and the Kinisba ruins, which are about 25 miles south of Pinetop. Here are some photos of that day's journey:

Ft Apache
 
General Bulter's cabin.
 
Another of the older cabins.
 
An interesting architectural concept - placing a window in the middle of the chimney!
 
The architecture changes dramatically.
 
 
 
Our escort. The dog followed us everywhere we went. He was quite playful; he kept tossing sticks and then dashed off to retrieve them.
 
 
 
One of the buildings was in obvious ruins. Note the decaying wooden sidewalks.
 
 
 
 
 
Later in the fort's history this was the main administration building when the fort was used as an indian school.
 
The boys' dorm at the opposite end of what was once the parade ground.

Kinisba Ruins

From Ft. Apache we drove southwest about five miles on the state road and then turned off for a three or four mile drive down a graded road to the Kinishba Ruins. They were both interesting and a disappointment. They were interesting in that it was impressive to see the complexity of a pueblo built circa 13th century. The disappointment lay in the fact that there was an attempt to restore the ruins at some point in the mid to late 20th century and that effort was never completed. At some point the restoration began to decay, so that today it is difficult to determine what was the original indian construction and what was part of the restoration effort. Nonetheless, it is certainly worth the visit.

 
 
 
These are the ruins. On the other side is a deep wash through which a river flowed, so they had ready access to water here.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Take more of our eastern Arizona tour:
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