HIDE AWAY IN THE ROCK GARDENS OF THE CHIRICAHUAS.

Byline: Eric Noland Travel Editor

CHIRICAHUA NATIONAL MONUMENT, Ariz. - Cochise certainly had good taste.

After the famed Apache leader confounded and infuriated the U.S. Army in a deadly 10-year game of cat-and-mouse, he ultimately negotiated a peace settlement built around one important condition: that he and his people be allowed to remain on a reservation in their ancestral home, the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona.

It's not difficult to see why he would want to remain here.

The Chiricahuas sit in a transition zone, where two deserts (Chihuahua, Sonora) and two mountain ranges (Rockies, Sierra Madre) converge. As a result, it is a region of remarkable biological diversity. With much of the range jutting to elevations of 6,000 feet and more, it distinguishes itself from the desert floor far below, offering cool breezes, trickling streams and shady stands of manzanita and conifers.

And then there are the strangely contorted forests of rock. Due to a freak of geology, the Chiricahuas' rocks resemble children's stacking toys. As in many such areas of the Southwest, the odd formations resulted from a violent volcanic eruption followed by eons of erosion.

For Cochise and his Chokonen band, this was not only ``The Land of the Standing-Up Rocks'' but, presumably, the world of a million hiding places.

In a final chapter that played out many times over in the American West, Cochise was granted his homeland when he worked out a peace settlement in 1872. But when he died two years later, the U.S. government promptly reneged, and relocated his people to the San Carlos Reservation in a godforsaken desert due east of present-day Phoenix. Settlers had coveted the Chiricahuas, and their will prevailed.

Today, a 13,000-acre segment of Cochise's beloved mountains is Chiricahua National Monument, a no-frills reserve that lies 42 miles south of Interstate 10.

We approached it from the other direction, on a day trip from Bisbee. It's easily done - an 88-mile drive through wide-open country on the remote highways 80, 191 and 181.

The route passes through the down-at-the-heels border town of Douglas, Ariz., which would be unworthy of a stop if not for the magnificent Gadsden Hotel. It was built in 1907, and what an incongruous edifice it must have been for the cattle barons and mining magnates who stumbled in off a forbidding frontier.

A grand staircase of white Italian marble rises from the lobby. Four marble columns in hues of copper rise two stories from the floor. An elaborate stained-glass mural - facing east to catch the rising sun - graces the mezzanine.

During our brief stop, it seemed fitting that several old codgers were sprawled in chairs and couches at the center of the lobby, telling tales in a ritual that has probably played out for 100 years.

As you continue on to Chiricahua, you'll be wise to gas up your vehicle and make sure you've stocked up on drinking water and provisions for lunch. The national monument is a bare-bones operation, with no services to speak of. There is a campground and a small Visitor Center, but no restaurant or grocery store. The nearest gas from the direction we came was 40 miles away in Elfrida.

Once at the monument, it's easy to explore either behind the wheel or on foot. There is an eight-mile scenic drive that climbs to the stunning viewpoint of Massai Point, as well as more than 20 miles of hiking trails.

We opted for one of the most scenic hikes in the park, the 3.3-mile Echo Canyon Loop. Walk it in a counter-clockwise direction to ensure that you'll be in afternoon shade on the latter part of it.

Along the way, you'll observe layers of rock so precise they look like nature's masonry. After only a short distance you're among the rock formations, which resemble the monoliths of Easter Island - except these weren't hewn by human hands.

Names have been conferred on several of the formations over the years. On the 7.5-mile Heart of Rocks Loop, you'll find Duck on a Rock, Totem Pole, Pinnacle Balanced Rock, and Punch and Judy. The compulsion is understandable. Before long we found an unnamed tower that looked distinctly like a human profile, with nose, left eye socket, neck, breast, left arm.

At about the midpoint of the trail, we climbed down onto a sun-caressed rock shelf for lunch. Behind us was an orderly choir of rock spires, and in the distance, through a notch in this range, the peaks of the Pendregosa Mountains were visible in the distance.

Hikers passed by just a few feet away on the trail, unaware of our presence.

A land of many hiding places, indeed.

IF YOU GO

--Chiricahua National Monument: Visitor Center open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entrance fee is $5 per adult, good for seven days (age 16 and younger free). Information: [phone]; www.nps.gov/chir.

--Gadsden Hotel: 1046 G Ave., Douglas, Ariz. [phone].

Eric Noland, [phone]

eric.noland(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

5 photos, box, map

Photo:

(1 -- color) On a hike through Chiricahua National Monument, a visitor can appreciate why the Apaches found the rocky region such an ideal hide-out in the late 1800s.

(2 -- 4) At Chiricahua National Monument in southeast Arizona, some rock formations resemble the giant heads of Easter Island, top; some serve as shade for a lizard, above left; and some, above, perform a precarious balancing act.

(5) At the Gadsden Hotel, built in 1907 in the border town of Douglas, Ariz., a grand staircase made from white Italian marble leads down to the lobby, where men setlle in for a long morning's chat.

Box:

IF YOU GO (see text)

Map:

Arizona