How does one describe the Dragoon Mountains (Dragoons)? If a child playing in a sandbox happened to take stones from the nearby ground and meticulously stack them atop and beside each other you might, conceivably, come close to the absurdity and wild beauty of these mountains. There is no rhythm to the Dragoons and no flow. They have no symmetry and no order. And yet, with none of that they come together in a grand confluence and sublime beauty that defies belief and humbles the soul of an observer. When taken together with the verdant blossoms of the thunderous Huachucas, the rolling simplicity of the meandering Mules and the soldierly scope of the hoodoo Chiricahuas you have, what I like to call, the four pillars of southeastern Arizona's Cochise County sky island mountains. Each of these, along with the Whetstone and the Perilla offers an explorer endless opportunities to view the most extensive diversity of wildlife in the US, as well as natural structures that rival any of the countries most popular vistas. Still, they remain relatively unknown outside of the inhabitants of the area. That is probably a good thing.

One of those natural structures, easily missed, sits inside the Council Rocks conclave of boulders and hoodoos in the Dragoons. At roughly 12 feet tall, an improbably smooth and rounded rock sits atop a table of stone, topped with a stem of smaller rock creating the illusion of an apple balancing tenuously for its existence. I call it Apple Rock but I am confident there is an official name that I have yet to learn. It was here I watched the sun set behind Treaty Hill. Surrounded by hoodoos, pictographs and an endless sky I was at peace.
Shoot Date: July 22, 2018
Canon EOS 5D Mark IV
Aperture priority ¹⁄₁₃ sec at f/18 0 EV
Lens: EF16-35mm f/4L IS USM @ 16 mm
ISO: 100