Saguaro National Park: Stop #4 of 4

There are many events or places where you will always remember your first time seeing or where you were when it happened. Seeing a Saguaro cactus is probably one of those times, especially when you're from the Midwest or Eastern areas. Saguaro cactus are unique to the southwestern U.S. Our first exposure was driving into the Phoenix area back in the 1990s to visit family. We pulled off the road multiple times to take photos. Now, we drive those same roads and never stop.

That said, the fascination with Saguaros hasn't ended. They still remind me of the cartoon character, Gumby. Their white caps in springtime transform into large white flowers that are so beautiful. Spring would be the best time to visit the Saguaro National Park just outside of Tucson. Did we? No, let's go in

triple digit temperatures during monsoon season. Admittedly, a recent article about Saguaros dying in our record heat also enticed us.

Before we get to cactus, a little monsoon talk. Like Saguaros, monsoon season is unique to the desert southwest. It involves dew points rising about 55 degrees, something rare for the desert. It means a shift in wind currents, so storms come from the south and southeast, drawing more humid Gulf air. Typically wind currents move from west-to-east. And, desert thunderstorms sometimes collapse, which causes the colder air to drop quickly, like a water balloon splashing on the ground. That means the dirt from the desert floor gets blown from the down draft, resulting in amazing dust storms, called haboobs. To me, these dust walls look like inverted tornado clouds. We see clear sky above the dust wall, or haboob, while there is often a streak of clear sky along the horizon with tornado clouds. Will return to this in a bit.

Now Saguaro National Park information. Most national parks we have visited are huge chunks of land. Examples: Yellowstone is 2.2 million acres and Grand Canyon is 1.2 million acres. Saguaro is much smaller and split into two land areas, or districts: (1) the Tucson Mountain district is west of the city of Tucson and just over 25,000 acres, and (2) the Rincon Mountain district, east of the city, and over 67,000 acres. (1) The Tucson district is newer, established in 1961 and features more primitive roads and a more dense forest of younger cacti. (2) Rincon district is older, established in 1933, with older cacti and an 8-mile paved road. Due to the heat, we opted for the Rincon district and paved road.

This video is sped up and condensed to give a general feel of what the one-way, very curvy road is like. There are many different plants in the park as well as beautiful mountain ranges in the distance. This would be another fun place to hike, in better weather conditions.

SOURCE:  https://youtu.be/jH-khk_oIMk

Remember the monsoon information above? First, from what we could see in our quick visit, the Saguaro appear to be doing ok in this heat. I’m sure a good number are under stress. We won’t know the damage for weeks or months. 

Second, in the video above, the clouds are building. We soon had light rain. It had been a full day so we opted to drive the rest of the park without stopping and then head straight home to avoid both the rain and evening traffic in the Valley. There is a stretch of I-10 that frequently experiences dust storms and traffic problems. Thankfully we were home safely long before the rain arrived here. What a refreshing day!

We would like to return and hike the two-mile Mica View Trail, walk the quarter mile educational Desert Ecology trail to learn about desert plants, stop at Javelina Rocks for photos and visit the west Saguaro Park. We definitely need to return. As far as the intense heat this summer affecting the Saguaro cactus: we didn’t notice it a lot in the park but we also didn’t explore the park a lot. In the couple weeks since this trip and doing more travel locally, we are noticing several cacti with arms that have dropped off or even browning of the entire plant. That is sad since it takes so many years to grow these remarkable cactus!