I will let others speak about my hometown, paradise comes up a lot.
"Not even a town; it’s technically an “unincorporated community” with about 300 registered voters, for population context – tucked in the mouth of Cave Creek Canyon, on the eastern side of the Chiricahua Mountains in Southern Arizona. “It has such stunning biodiversity as you go up the mountains – one minute you’re looking at cacti, the next you’re looking at pines, the next you see lush greenery and tropical birds. It’s a little paradise.”
"For five months out of the year, Cave Creek Canyon is a birder’s paradise'
The rest of the time, it’s just paradise."
" I gaze into Cave Creek Canyon as a portal into another world, another dimension,” she says. “It’s not just the landscape, but also the feel of the place. Sometimes, when I hike alone on the South Fork trail, I feel spirits emanating from the cliff walls and whispering in the running water.”
"See the “Yosemite of Arizona.” Portal, which fittingly means “doorway” in Spanish, offers passage to beautiful cave creek canyon, a crowd-free naturalists’ paradise."
The Chiricahua Mountains are a bio-diverse area which is composed of numerous sky islands. Five of the 9 life zones[ are found in the Chiricahua Mountains. Three hundred and seventy-five avian species have been recorded from the Chiricahua Mountains; some are largely Mexican species for which southern Arizona is the northern limits of their ranges. Other animals of note include ocelots, jaguars, mountain lions, nine-banded armadillo, black bears, and white-tailed deer.
With the base of the Chiricahuas at about 3,600 feet (1,100 m), the range covers about 6,000 feet (1,800 m) in elevation. Grasslands and desert cover the base of the range, with ponderosa pine and Douglas fir at the highest elevations. Cave Creek Canyon on the east side is home to the American Museum of Natural History Southwest Research Station and the small towns of Portal and Paradise.