How to Hike to Heart of Rocks Loop in Chiricahua National Monument, Arizona

Hello everybody and welcome back to part two of our Chiricahua National Monument series. Series, yes. Series, yes. I'm Dustin and I'm Vee from That Adventure Life. Last week we did the inspiration point. It's part of the big hive that's called Big Loop and as we mentioned you can just you know go do just sections of it instead of doing the whole thing. So this time we're going to the next section which is the Hug of Rocks. So that's supposedly one of the best trails in the park. Well I don't know about that. We'll see. So it'll take you to Hug of Rocks. That's what it's called. So the area is called Hug of Rocks. So the whole thing is between 7.3 miles to about 8 something miles. The whole reason for that is if you want to make a detour out to get to inspiration point. So if you add on inspiration point that will be an additional one mile. So that's up to you. So that's out and back. Yeah out and back. So it has like little short loops like a lollipop loop at the end. So if you want to do just do inspiration point you can just watch our video from last week. Next week we're going to do the Big Loop which is like the entire thing and it's very windy right now. So I hope you can hear me. But yeah so we're gonna show you how to do the Hug of Rocks trail. Yes. Oh rock. It sounds weird but you know. Hey let's go check it out. Yes. Hey see you out there. This hike shares a trailhead and possibly some trail with the video from last week which was inspiration point. So we'll be starting at the Echo Canyon trailhead and we'll come to our first junction just one-tenth of a mile into our hike. We got through the junction and as you know from inspiration point it's gonna split you to whether you're gonna get over through inspiration point this way or you're gonna go this way to Echo Canyon trail. We're not going to talk about yet. So if you are going to Heart of Rocks loop you will go this way. So go left. You're gonna go left this way towards Ed Ricks trails and now towards Nature Trail that way. There are actually three different ways that you can get to Heart of Rocks. You can do the Heart of Rocks loop from Echo Canyon which is what we're doing in this video. This trail is 7.2 miles long with 1591 feet of elevation gain. Another option is to do an out and back hike to Heart of Rocks from the visitor center. This gives you a distance of 6.9 miles with an elevation gain of 1597 feet. And the third option is to catch the shuttle when it's operating. Have it drop you off at Masai Point. From there you can hike to Heart of Rocks and then continue back down to the visitor center again. This trail has the most downhill out of the three options. If you already saw the inspiration point video you can jump ahead to the time on the screen right now and that will take you to where we left off last week. If you haven't seen it you should definitely click in the upper corner right now to check it out. On the other hand if this is your first time seeing Chiricahua National Monument on the channel you are in for a treat because this place is amazing. We are now nearing the three-quarter mile mark of the hike and you're going to start to see a lot more hoodoos. The trail will be curving off to the right as we enter a very appropriately named area. This is Totem Canyon. This is where at the one mile mark we will be coming to the next junction. If you're wanting to go to Heart of Rocks you're going to follow the sign for inspiration point and go left at the bottom of the stairs. The trail has been pretty much all downhill at this point and enjoy it while it lasts because we're about to get to the climb. This climb is no joke. It's about 1.2 miles long and it'll have you gaining right around 600 feet and even though it's not crazy high elevations you'll be just under 7,000 feet above sea level once you reach the top. The good thing about the climb is that there is a lot of beautiful scenery here which equals good excuses to stop and catch your breath. Since we showed the vast majority of the climb in the inspiration point video this is kind of the abbreviated version but trust me when I say that in the moment it felt like this climb would After all the uphill climbs we came up to another junction. Wow there's so many junctions right? If you go right we'll go to inspiration point trail. We're not going to do that on this video. If you want to watch our little one mile trail trip you can check back in our video last week we're going to actually go this way so go straight this way it's going to take us toward balance rock trail, hargub rock and so if you want to do hargub rock trail we're going to follow this way and then we want to complete the baker loop it's also going to be this way so go straight for all the baker heights. After leaving the junction for inspiration point you are only one mile from the start of heart of rocks there's going to be a little bit more climbing but it's nowhere near as steep as what you had to climb to get to inspiration point even though there was plenty of plant life up here there wasn't really much that would give you any decent amount of shade unless you count that giant balancing boulder off in the distance so keep that in mind if you will be visiting here during the warmer months bring more water than you think you need and it's always a great idea to hike with an sos beacon of course when v saw the large balancing boulder she wanted to climb up to it luckily it seemed like it was pretty easy to get up there and it's a great way to give some scale to just how big this boulder really is and the other benefit of climbing up there is that you get a nearly 360 degree view of your surroundings if climbing isn't your thing though don't worry because there is a trail that circles around the boulder after leaving the big balancing rock the trail and the scenery starts to get more and more interesting as we rounded a soft bend we started to get our first looks at the area that is known as the heart of rocks you're not quite there just yet but the cool thing is that the trail does start to dive down amongst the stone columns this is such a neat area and it ended up being one of our favorite parts of the big loop trail you've obviously seen a ton of hoodoos at this point but this is one of the first parts of the trail where you're actually going to walk amongst them and if you like doing landscape photography there's also this awesome photo up as the trail dove deeper into the rock formations it started to remind us of one of our other favorite places which is Bryce Canyon if you haven't seen our video from Bryce Canyon where we hiked the Queen's Garden to Navajo loop in the snow be sure to click in the upper corner because that was incredible even though there are some similarities there are a couple major differences between the formations here and the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon the Bryce Canyon hoodoos are made primarily of a sedimentary rock known as limestone and they get their famous orange color from the presence of iron oxide minerals in the rock but the hoodoos that you see here at Chiricahua National Monument are actually made from volcanic rock this was the result of an eruption that happened over 27 million years ago and another distinctive feature that a lot of the formations have out here is that they are covered in lichens so they have a greenish tint to them along the way to the start of the heart of rocks you'll come to several lookouts that give you a view of a formation known as the big balanced rock they are not exaggerating and this thing is massive you definitely have to wonder how long that boulder is going to be able to stay up there but we don't have too much time to ponder that right now because we have arrived at our destination hi so we came up to another junction the junctions is either for the heart of rock loop heart of rocks loop trails which is an additional 1.1 miles and then it's just gonna loop back and add on to like the big loop trail today we are going to do the heart of rocks loop and then we'll come back the way we came from and then if you want to stay for the longer hike the big loop then wait until the next video we'll show you that way please note that this is a fairly rugged trail there are tons of rocks roots and other tripping hazards here this entire loop is only 1.1 miles long but it is pretty challenging with a ton of elevation changes along the way after a short stroll down a flat trail you should come to this sign and this is where the climb starts to kick in as i always say shoes with a good amount of traction will make your life much much easier luckily the rock here has a good amount of grip to it as well but when you mix that with a good shoe you have a winning combination it's almost too bad that we were doing this as part of the big loop we had a lot of trail ahead of us so we were really having to keep an eye on the time but there is so much to explore here i think you could spend a lot of time here looking at all the formations and speaking of formations here is the first one that you come to on the trail which is pinnacle balance rock the other great thing about this loop is that you will finally be getting into some decent shade we were visiting on a pretty hot day and it was definitely nice to get out of the sun for a second the trail here is really well marked with signs but it can also be a tiny bit faint so it wouldn't be a bad idea to be running an app like all trails on your phone just to make sure that you're going the right way the second formation that you should be coming to on the heart of rocks loop is the old maid and it's one of those ones that you can definitely see why they called it that when you see it from the right angle as we snaked our way through shaded corridors we came to the next formation on our hike which is camel's head this is another fun and well-named rock as you can see right here it's almost too bad that this small loop is out in the middle of nowhere because it would be a really fun one for new hikers and kids but the good thing about it being slightly harder to reach is that you're not going to have a whole lot of traffic out here we didn't see anyone while we were on this part of the trail the similarities to bryce canyon just keep on coming they even have a formation here known as thors hammer i have to say though i think the one at bryce canyon is just a little bit more impressive after leaving thors hammer be sure to keep your eyes peeled because there is this marker saying that you need to turn right to stay on the loop not only are there a ton of cool columns here but v and i found this cave that acts like a window looking out over the monument after leaving the cave we came to what is probably one of the longest stretches that we hiked without a named rock formation i mean it's not that far the whole trail is just over a mile but this is one of the longest stretches but that's not to say that there isn't still a ton to see here and we found several viewpoints that look out over the columns these viewpoints are great because they give you a sense of scale of just how big this park is and if you like random facts like i do chiricahua national monument stretches out over 12,025 acres or 19 square miles and the monument has been in existence since 1924 the next formation that we will be coming to is probably one of the more obscure ones on the list and it's called punch and judy i believe that you can see judy on the right side of the screen here but this formation was one of the few that we were just kind of puzzled by it kind of reminded me of one of those old pictures at the mall where you had to stare at it until you saw the image but don't worry the next formations are much more obvious after hiking a short ways down the trail we came to the next formation that is known as duck on a rock and if one duck isn't enough there's another one that looks kind of like maybe you've left a rubber duck in a hot car almost as soon as you leave the ducks the trail will start to descend pretty rapidly you're going to be making your way past the old maid and then down towards the forest that you walk through at the beginning of the heart of rocks trail there is still one more formation that you will get to enjoy on the way back towards the trailhead and it's called kissing rocks this is a really neat formation and man does that one on the left look fragile hopefully it still has plenty of time left before it eventually tips over things are going to be getting a little bit tricky at this point the trail is going to get really steep and it's going to be a little bit on the slippery side hiking poles might make things a little bit easier here but even with our lost sportiva shoes that give us a ton of traction things were still a little bit sketchy once you get to the bottom of the hill you'll see this fallen tree marking which way you need to go to get back to the trailhead almost as soon as you get back on the main trail you should come to the junction which is where you turn at the very beginning to start the loop and from there it's pretty much a flat walk out until you get to that last little spot where you have to climb back up to the main trail i must say that this one is definitely on the must-do list if you're visiting chiricahua national monument all right i am a little out of breath after all those stairs but that does it for the heart of rocks loop trail it's yeah it's beautiful though but if you're um it's a lot of rock scrambling for sure and there's a lot of elevation gain so it's for 1.1 miles it's gonna kick you about for a bit but it's beautiful i i think one of the highlights of the entire trail so far i mean it's it's the whole thing has been pretty incredible so far but there was a lot of like moments where you just come around a corner and you're just like whoa yeah the whole thing it just is beautiful so yeah uh i mean if you're you're not a big on scrambling i might skip this one there's a lot of scramblings and rock stairs and it's gonna kick your butt for sure yeah but it's worth it yeah so what you can do from this point if you came the same direction that we did you will be making the left at the top of the trail and heading right on back um if you're not sure follow the signs that say balance rock trail that would take you back and then from there you can follow your way back to the echo canyon trails or messiah point it depends on where you park yeah and if you are not completely destroyed uh stay tuned for next week because we will be continuing on down the trail to the right yeah we're gonna do the whole big loop wish us luck that that that was that was that was a little rough so wish us luck see you next video