Friends of the Huachuca Mountains

06/15/2026

Coming up this weekend at Carr House!

Saturday, June 20, at 9 am, it’s Kids Day! What animals visit Carr House? Can we find out from the tracks they leave behind? We’ll be making a track box to record who visits. Children must be accompanied by their parents.

Sunday, June 21, at 1:30 pm, Herps, Snakes, Lizards and More! Cochise County has lots of critters that creep, crawl, or slither, including reptiles like lizards, snakes, and Gila monsters, to name just a few. Tom Miscione, herpetologist, will help us learn not to fear these important members of the local eco-system. His many live specimens will let you get up close and personal with a diverse number of snakes and lizards. Always popular, be sure to come early!

Operated as a Visitors Center by the Friends of the Huachuca Mountains, Carr House is located at 1011 E. Carr Canyon Road and can be found on Google Maps. The house is open Saturdays, Sundays, and all Federal holidays (except Thanksgiving Day) from April 4th through November 28th from 9 am to 4 pm. Visit our website, huachucamountains.org, or find us on Facebook to see the full schedule of events.

05/23/2026

We had a great time at Kids Day at Carr House this morning! Kids from littles to early teens came up to learn about skulls, fossils, and pre-historic creatures who lived in Cochise County thousands of years ago, like mammoth, saber-toothed cats, camels, and horses! And they learned about the Arizona State Dinosaur, Sonorasauras, discovered in the Whetstone Mountains!

Our next program will be on Sunday, June 7, at1:30 pm, when co-founder of the Southeast Arizona Bird Observatory (SABO), Tom Wood, will present a history of SABO and the Ash Canyon Bird Sanctuary-a local gem featuring many birds and other animals. We probably won't have a lot of kids that day, unless they are true bird lovers.

But coming up on Saturday, June 20, at 9:00 am, we'll have another Kids Day! We'll talk about the animals that visit the area around Carr House today. Which ones have you seen? Then we’ll be making a track box to record who visits. Kids Day participants must be accompanied by a parent.

05/10/2026

Be sure to join us on Sunday, May 17, at Carr House, 1:30 p.m. for an interesting program presented by the Borderlands Restoration Network. The Borderlands Restoration Network Native Plant Program was founded in 2012 when a group of restoration practitioners identified and responded to the need for locally produced native plants. Native plants have spent centuries developing distinct adaptations to regional conditions, held deep in the plants’ genomes and expressed as increased drought-tolerance, cold-tolerance, and high nectar quantities for local pollinators.

Before the event you can order from borderlandsplants.org online and your purchase will be delivered to the Carr House the day of the program. There is a place to write notes in the order and you need to just write “Carr House 5/17” and they will deliver anything ordered, plant, seed, shirt, or book.

Carr House is located at 1011 East Carr Canyon Road in Hereford.

05/08/2026

Please join us at the Sierra Vista Public Library, 2600 E. Tacoma Street in Sierra Vista, on Saturday, May 16, 1:30 p.m. for a presentation about beavers in the San Pedro River Valley.

The San Pedro River was called Beaver River by trappers in the early 1800s because it boasted an immense population of beavers and beaver dams. Known today as “nature’s engineers”, beavers had created marshes, or cienegas, all along the San Pedro River Valley. Beavers were trapped to extinction by the end of the 1800s, leading to the collapse of the ecological system that had existed along the river for centuries because of the beavers. Reintroduced in 1999, there has been a renewed interest in American Beaver (Castor canadensis) along the San Pedro River. Dr. Steve Merkley and Mr. Frank Emanuele, biology instructors at Cochise College, will discuss the ecological importance and genetic diversity of this charismatic rodent. They will highlight impacts on native wildlife and discuss methods of using non-invasive DNA collection to explore beaver populations. Collected wood chips from beaver chewed trees have to be analyzed for mitochondrial DNA and this data has the potential to illustrate relationships between individuals within a colony. This is a joint program between Friends of Huachuca Mountains and Friends of the San Pedro River.

04/06/2026

Friends, please join us at Carr House this season for an interesting series of programs.

We will start things off on Saturday, April 11, at 8 am, with a bird walk led by Cochise College professor Dr. Steve Merkley. The canyons of the Huachuca Mountains offer a different birding experience than you’ll find in the San Pedro River Valley. You might see or hear high altitude birds such as Buff-breasted flycatchers, Red-faced and Grace’s warblers, Yellow-eyed Juncos, Pygmy Nuthatches, Steller’s Jays, and more. Be sure to bring your binoculars!

Also on April 11, at 9 am, we will have our first Kids Day at Carr House. Kids and their parents will learn about what different birds eat and why they choose those foods. To finish we will be making pinecone bird feeders for kids to take home. Kids Day participants must be accompanied by a parent.

We are excited to announce that this year we will be having a special Kids Day event every month, in addition to our regular Sunday (and occasional Saturday) programs. Visit our website, huachucamountains.org, or find us on Facebook to see the full schedule of events.

Carr House is located at 9800 E. Carr Canyon Road, and is open Saturdays, Sundays, and all Federal holidays (except Thanksgiving Day) from April 4th through November 28th from 9 am to 4 pm.

03/21/2026

And now for the announcement we've all been waiting for! Drum roll, please? Carr House will open for the season on April 4 and will be open Saturdays, Sundays, and Federal holidays (except Thanksgiving Day) from 9 am to 4 pm through November 28. We'll see you there!!

Send a message to learn more

01/09/2026

The Forest Service has closed Carr Canyon Road at the Clark Springs Trailhead. After the recent rain and snow, the road is quite slippery and unsafe. Hopefully we'll see some more rain and snow before spring, we certainly need it.

Send a message to learn more

10/03/2025

The Sky Islands School of Nature and the Arts visited Carr House on September 26 for a fun and educational field trip.

Carr House Host Mike Foster talked to the students in the presentation room of the house and explained what the term "Sky Islands" means. Ron Hyde from the Southern Arizona Museum of Science and Technology brought several fossils that had been discovered right in Cochise County. The students were excited to learn that Arizona actually has a state dinosaur, Sonorasaurus, a large, herbivorous, long-necked dinosaur, estimated to be around 49-55 feet long and 25-27 feet tall. It was discovered in Cochise County in 1997 by a University of Arizona student.

Catching a break from the rain, Mike continued his presentation outside Carr House and then introduced Angeles Emory. Originally from Mexico, as a child Angeles and her family used plants native to that area and also found in Arizona for food. She told the students about edible plants such as prickly pear and warned them not to try to pick prickly pear "tunas" or pads, even if they don't seem to have spines. It's best to buy them from a supermarket! Better safe than stuck, even the tiny spines hurt. A LOT!

Then it was off for a hike to the ruins of the Healy house in the meadow below Carr House. The weather started off nice, then took a turn for the worse. Everyone returned to the house pretty soggy after the rain started on the hike back to the house.

Once everybody was back inside and mostly dry, Taylor Hansen from The Nature Conservancy in Arizona talked to the students about some of the flora and fauna of the Huachuca Mountains.

A good time was had by all!

09/30/2025

After last Friday's storms the Carr Canyon waterfall is running! Thanks to Nina Chen for this photo!

08/03/2025