In Season: Saguaro National Park

As cooler autumn temperatures set in, this is an excellent time to consider a trip to your favorite desert in the northern hemisphere — or to one you’ve always intended to visit.

“Cooler” is a relative term. “Lower” temperatures in Death Valley, the Great Basin of Nevada and many other places can still be blisteringly hot by some standards. Or, depending on what the jet stream is doing or the time of day, they can be bitterly cold. Nature is capricious, and pays no heed to rules, averages or conventions.

One place to consider visiting during the winter months is Saguaro National Park, in southeastern Arizona.

In order to prepare you for your trip, we went back to Saguaro this July and scouted it out for you. It’d been a number of years since our previous visit. We spent 8 days in and around Tucson in the absolute dead-center of summer. We’re not strangers to summertime in the desert and knew what we were in for. Tucson gave us its very best effort; daytime highs ranged from about 110 to 116 degrees (@ 43 – 47 C).

There are two advantages to hiking in the midsummer desert. First, trails are rarely crowded. Most visitors are waiting for autumn or winter and those milder temperatures.

Second, the deserts of Arizona and New Mexico get most of their annual rainfall in midsummer, thanks to the “monsoon” thunderstorms the terrain and atmosphere generate. The thunder clouds build up during the afternoon and let go in late afternoon or early evening They can produce torrential rain, lightning and high winds. As a result, that’s the season to see green and blooming plants in that part of the southwest, if ever.

Here, for example, are ocotillo trees, green and just ready to burst out with their red blooms.

In the California deserts, our blooming season is usually in February or March, once the winter rains come in off the Pacific (if they come at all). We enjoyed seeing a green desert landscape in midsummer.

The stars of the show — indelibly associated with iconic views of the American west — are the saguaro cacti.

Sometimes growing more than 40 feet tall, saguaro (Carnegiea gigantea) typically live for 150 – 200 years. They survive by storing water in their tissues, supported by extensive root systems. They bear fruit that was a favorite of indigenous people of the area, as well as local birds.

Visitors to the southwest — Texas, Utah, New Mexico — are often disappointed when they don’t see saguaros, but the cacti’s range is limited to the Sonoran desert of Mexico and southern Arizona, with a few in the Imperial Valley of southeastern California. They don’t thrive in cold weather, and both climate and elevation restrict their range. They’re not the only thing that makes this national park special, but they’re the marquee attraction.

Prepare

What does one do to prepare for hiking in extreme temperatures? If you’re us, you set out from Tucson at first light, get to the trailhead at or before 7 a.m., and get off the trail well before late morning. There are hardy back country hikers acclimated to conditions like that. Admittedly, we are not. Discretion is always advised, for we’re all small people in a vast, unforgiving landscape.

As you seasoned travelers who like to shoot photos know, an early start gives you the advantage of the low morning light. Shadows are longer, relief is more pronounced than later in the day when the sun’s high, colors more vivid.

Beasts of the Desert

Another advantage is that — especially in summer — your best chance to see wildlife other than lizards and snakes is early in the day — the earlier the better. Most of the animals are nocturnal or crepuscular, and have vamoosed by the time the sun is up.

We were admiring this scene of desert vegetation from the trail, looking into the sun that had just cleared the Rincon Mountains to the east. It was interesting to see so much green in the summertime desert.

There was a telltale reddish blush to the right of a barrel cactus, in front of a green cholla cactus. Zooming in to the limit of my lens, I captured this local resident:

A black-tailed jackrabbit (Lepus californica). They’re common all over the west, but they’re skittish and camera-shy. Only the morning sun shining through its translucent ears gave that one away.

Our route that day was on Cactus Forest Trail, easily accessible at its northern and southern ends from the loop drive through the eastern Rincon district of Saguaro National Park (see below for more orientation). That kept us in the low desert that’s the habitat of the saguaros, because that’s what we wanted to see. We weren’t equipped for a longer, hot weather hike into more remote portions of the park, up into the Rincon Mountains, seen in this view.

As the trail rises and falls, you get views northward toward Tucson and the Santa Catalina Mountains beyond it.

With the heat, we limited ourselves to a couple of hours, and by that time, the thermometer read 100 (38 C). Yes, we might’ve stayed out longer, but there are limits. Later in the year, with the temperature and the sun a bit lower, you’re in for a wonderful time at Saguaro National Park.

The city of Tucson has plenty more to offer, and I’ll cover some of its attractions in upcoming posts.

Practicalities: Many Paths

Saguaro National Park has two districts, east and west. We were hiking in the Rincon district, east of Tucson. The Tucson — western — district is 30 miles away, northwest of downtown Tucson (map, circles).

Both districts have visitor centers and a portion of each section is accessible by a loop drive. You can get a sense of the terrain and vegetation by driving the loops and stopping to look. To really see the park and develop a feel for this remarkable place, get out of your vehicle and walk — if only for a moderate distance. There’s an enormous amount of remote and sometimes wilderness area accessible only on foot or horseback. Trail cycling is permitted only on one trail in each of the districts. Hiking trails are plentiful, your options are many.

From Tucson’s 2,400 feet above sea level, some trails ascend much higher into different climate zones. You leave the saguaros and low desert chaparral behind and climb through scrub oak, pine, ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. In the eastern district, you can reach Mt. Mica at 8,566 feet after many miles of hiking (and you must hike back out).

Caveats

Regular readers have seen my desert caveats before.

Yes, there are rattlesnakes. Back away if you see or (more likely) hear one. You might hike for years without encountering one (true for me), but pay attention.

Avoid brushing against anything, at least in the low desert portions. Everything’s prickly and will penetrate your skin after piercing your clothes or even the uppers of your shoes if you’re careless.

Painful, trust me.

There’s no water beyond the visitor centers except what you carry. Take it … and drink it, too. Something bad can happen, whatever the temperature. You can wait out most setbacks until help arrives if you have water. If you don’t have enough water, you’ve created a potential emergency, sui generis. Every living thing in the desert knows: water is life. Pay attention.

I’m happy to have comments from readers with additional pointers about seeing Saguaro.

© Brad Nixon 2019. Some photographs © M. Vincent 2019. Used by kind permission. Map © Google.