Massai Point

Massai Point is the road-end overlook and trailhead at the end of the eight-mile Bonita Canyon scenic drive. From the lot, you can look across rhyolite pinnacles, valleys and distant mountain ranges; the rock columns fill Rhyolite Canyon, with Cochise Head in the wider view. I’d keep this stop in the day: the panorama is right by the car, and a short walk gets you closer to the formations.

The trail reaches Speakers Rock, a rustic stone amphitheater with a view into the pinnacles, and an exhibit building with displays about the area’s natural history. It’s worth walking over if you want more than the road-side panorama. For a photo, include some of the stonework at Speakers Rock below the rock towers; it gives the view a foreground and a sense of scale.

These towers are rhyolite, shaped from ash and debris thrown out by an eruption about 27 million years ago. The material settled into rhyolite tuff, then cracked into blocks and eroded into the pillars you see across the canyon. Some rise hundreds of feet on surprisingly narrow bases, which is why the formations look so precariously balanced from the overlooks.

The paved road ends here, so you’ll return the same way. The lot has 25 spaces, a picnic pavilion and a vault toilet; it has no trailer or oversized-vehicle parking, and vehicles are limited to 24 feet. Fuel, charging, groceries and other basics are roughly 30 to 40 miles away in Willcox or Sunizona, so take care of those before the drive up.