Hiking in Arizona

I was thinking about hiking the other day. A few months ago a friend and I went hiking in a wilderness canyon- rare in that it has water year round. It was twelve miles off the main dirt road- took an hour to get to the trail head. Surprisingly we met two other groups of people. Part of the attraction of this hike is the cliff dwelling in the canyon. The access to the dwelling is rather steep, my friend and I decided it was too steep and outside our comfort zone. We went down to the stream to eat lunch in view of the dwellings. While we were eating by the stream, one of the groups we had met went up to the cliff dwelling. The lady and two men climbed up into the structure- they were probably in their sixties- they obviously had different comfort zones than us. We had a good laugh about that. The other group we met was a group of men out for a hike like us. As we were talking something seemed odd to me- then I noticed- they were all armed. Each man had a pistol on his hip in plain view. I see this sort of thing a lot out here in Arizona. I like Arizona.