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If you’ve ever been to Tombstone, you’ve seen the Dragoon Mountains.
They look like a giant threw a tantrum, flinging rocks around and creating a landscape of massive, lopsided boulders that balance precariously. As if held together by sheer spite.
Most people cruise on past them on their way to watch staged gunfights and buy overpriced shot glasses, snapping a few photos before waddling back to their air-conditioned safe spaces.
But if you put in the effort to venture into the Dragoons, you’ll find something different. Something that goes beyond reenacted shootouts.
We traveled down from Tucson to experience that difference. To see the past not through reenactments and gift shops, but through a landscape that doesn’t tap dance for tourists.
To do that, we needed to leave the streets of Tombstone behind and venture into the heart of the Dragoon Mountains.
A landscape that keeps its secrets
The Dragoons have never been just a pile of rocks. Long before tourists zipped past on their way to Tombstone, this place was a fortress, a refuge, and a battleground.
For centuries, the Chiricahua Apache called this area home.
One of their fiercest leaders, Cochise, used the Dragoons as a natural fortress, outmaneuvering U.S. and Mexican forces who sought to push his people off the land.
The terrain was on Cochise’s side. Although the U.S. Army built a path through the range, the Dragoons are stubborn.
Even today, these mountains don’t give up their stories easily. Middlemarch Road, your dusty gateway to this adventure, is the kind of surface that’ll shake loose any hope you had for a smooth ride. The gravel washboards will rattle your teeth, soul, and probably also your DNA sequence.
If you’re lucky, you’ll pass a group of free-range cattle. They wear clanking bells and stare at you with the judgmental energy of an HOA president inspecting an unapproved mailbox.
And by the time you reach the base of the Dragoons, civilization is just a suggestion.
Words and photos are great, but they only capture so much. Want to see what it’s really like to camp in the Dragoons? Watch this:
No bathrooms, no Wi-Fi, no problem (okay, maybe a few problems if you’re a domesticated type)
The further back you drive into the Dragoons, the more the modern world fades away.
The last house disappears in your rearview. Your cell service withers and dies. And the road will narrow, winding between rock formations that have kept watch on the land for countless generations.
Camping here is a masterclass in self-reliance, where the syllabus includes topics like “How to Crap in the Woods 101” and “Building a Fire for People Who Definitely Lied on Their Boy Scout Application.”
No campground host to give you a friendly wave or remind you that you grossly underestimated your firewood needs.
No picnic tables to lay out your Trader Joe’s snacks like a backcountry charcuterie board.
No restrooms, unless you consider the entire desert your personal powder room.
And if you’re looking for running water, well, unless you can sweet-talk a cow into sharing its trough, you best bring your own.
The Dragoons strip life down to the essentials: food, fire, and that nagging voice in the back of your brain that hisses, “Hey, remember how great indoor plumbing is?”
We set up camp in a patch of desert between massive boulders that looked as if they dropped from orbit. Their surfaces were sanded smooth by centuries of wind, water, and other forces that turn mountains into living sculptures.
As the sun slumped behind the peaks, the sky shifted. The soft robin’s egg blue of the well-behaved afternoon gave way to a moody indigo desert night. With no city lights to drown them out, the stars seemed to pop into existence all at once.
There were no distant headlights. No humming highway. Just the pop of burning mesquite and the occasional rustling from something moving through the brush. Probably a jackrabbit, possibly something bigger (and hungrier.)
Council Rocks, an unmarked portal to the past
In Arizona, not all history lies behind a glass case. Some of it is etched into the wild, just waiting for you to notice.
We weren’t here just to camp. We also came looking for sites so overlooked they don’t even make it to the appendix of travel guides.
A few miles down Forest Road 687, a series of bus-sized boulders lean against each other, creating a cathedral-like space with several rooms. Inside the rock walls provide more than just shade. They also hold evidence of the past.
Known as Council Rocks, the Apache used this geological feature as a meeting place and a strategic hideout.
Located around seven miles down the Forest Service road, the path to Council Rocks is difficult to find.
Even with coordinates from Google Maps, we passed the turn the first time we drove by. And that felt fitting. Council Rocks isn’t trying to be found. It’s not a place that announces itself with signage.
The camping areas near the base of the Dragoons are a well-traveled, much-used place, but Council Rocks is more remote. And for most, it may seem like just another pile of boulders.
But if you stop, take on the short climb (I half expected an EMT to be waiting at the top for me), you’ll understand why this place has never been forgotten.
Cochise may have held peace talks with the U.S. Army here in the 1870s. And his warriors likely used this spot to track the movement of troops in the valley below, taking advantage of the formations that make Council Rocks an effective refuge.
It’s said they could get a 2-day notice about advancing U.S. Army troops from these rocks.
And as you stand on them and peer across vast swaths of desert and probably as far as modern-day Mexico, you see how that could be possible.
Council Rocks’ importance goes beyond strategy, though. The rock walls are marked with pictographs. Evidence that it was a place of significance to Indigenous people long before the Apache arrived.
The small interpretive sign outside states archaeologists believe the pictographs of Council Rocks were laid down by the Mogollon people 1,000 years ago and later embellished by the Apache. Each leaving behind only what the rock was willing to keep.
And among these steep cliffs and hidden canyons, Cochise and his warriors found in these rocks not only a home and a gathering place, but also a battlefield of their own choosing.
A fortress in the sky and a lost grave
On the north side of the Dragoon Mountains, Cochise Stronghold is a labyrinth of high ground, hidden caves, and rugged outcroppings where the Apache spent more than a decade resisting U.S. forces.
It’s easy to see why this place was an ideal defensive position, as it looks nearly impossible to breach. But, wandering through the area, it’s not just the towering cliffs that catch your attention.
Cochise Stronghold is a living museum offering you a chance to experience the stunning biodiversity and complicated history of what we now know as Arizona.
With trees like oak, juniper, and manzanita, the flora adds a unique texture and color to the landscape. We heard hummingbirds zipping by, saw hawks soaring overhead, and witnessed more mule deer than humans.
As you walk through his stronghold, it’s not just the impenetrable terrain that leaves an impression. It’s the weight of all that was fought for and lost here.
Cochise’s final resting place is somewhere in the Dragoons, although the exact location has been lost to time. And in that way, at least, the land still belongs to him.
First time visitor’s guide to the Dragoons
The Dragoons aren’t curated for easy tourism. You experience this place on its terms.
- Camping in the dispersed areas is free for up to 14 days (which is perfect if you love solitude, sunsets, and developing an intimate relationship with a shovel.)
- Middlemarch Road is rough, but passable in most vehicles. If you plan to venture deeper into the mountains, a high-clearance vehicle is required. (Otherwise, your trip may become an unplanned walking tour.)
- If you need supplies, the Walmart in Benson will have just about everything you forgot to pack.
- Gas, snacks, and firewood can be found at the Circle K gas staton in Tombstone.
- If you visit Council Rocks, please respect the artifacts. They’ve lasted for over a thousand years. Let’s not be the one generation that ruins it with a single bad Instagram caption.
Why it’s worth the effort
The Dragoons don’t try to impress you. They don’t tell you where to look, what to learn, or how to feel. They don’t care if you’re comfortable.
You either meet this place on its terms, or you don’t meet it at all.
Tombstone tells you the West was wild. The Dragoons are proof that it still is.
And that’s exactly why you won’t forget them.
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Still Here? You Must Be the Human Equivalent of Well-Seasoned Cast Iron Pan.
Most people tap out early like tourists who underestimate Arizona heat. But not you. You’re built different. So why not pull up a camping chair with us on Substack?
