Day 7 Saguaro National Park

 It was chilly this morning but packing up is easy when you just leave your wigwam hotel room.  We left as the sun was rising over the wigwam village. :) Each wigwam has its own historic car parked in front for ambiance.

We drove towards Saguaro National Park and my, oh my, the landscape is so diverse and unbelievable.  Flatter than flat plains that give way to hills and then immense valleys/cliffs!  Sometimes there is snow and sometimes not!  The temperature rises as we head south.  We have seen many a “cow” signs over our week of travels to warn about random cows that could be out and about and low and behold today there was a small herd of cows just hanging out.  We have seen small herds of wild horses but today was our first wild cow sighting. 

Saguaro National Park has only been a park since 1994; before that it was a monument and two different mountain districts were combined to create one park.  There are actually two of them, the east one and the west one.  We stopped at the east one first, got my passport stamped and bought a few things and headed out for a drive and hike.  It is pretty spectacular to see these cacti just everywhere.  Saguaro only grow in certain places, places that have 2 rainy seasons within the year, some parts of Arizona, a few areas on the California/Arizona border and parts of Mexico.  It takes decades for them to grow just a few inches and nearly 70 years for them to grow their trademark “arms.”  They can live to be 200+ years old.  They may produce several million seeds over their lifetime but it is a harsh world so not that many germinate in the wild.  Apparently the fruit that is produced is very tasty and everything that lives in this desert environment snarfs it up as soon as it hits the ground.  Even people enjoy its flavor!  Our park ranger did say that it germinates well in a garden/greenhouse setting though!  

The ranger at the visitor center suggested a route for us to hike from the many available and we headed off to the trail head, which was a bit of a drive including a dirt road!  The trail itself was about .7 of a mile sort of flat and then it went UP for another mile!  What a view so it was worth the climb that seemed to go on forever. That first .7 went by quickly but that upward mile took a long time.  I have to watch my steps or I’ll trip over anything but I was also watching for warming snakes and Gila monsters and African killer bees (YES!!).  It warmed up to 70 degrees (a far cry from our 6 degree hike on Tuesday!) so I was legitimately concerned about critters.  We encountered quite a few people coming down the ridge and chatted (and maybe had an excuse to stop and rest) and then continued on up. The view! WOW oh WOW.  Cactus of all types but especially the tall saguaro, and mountain ranges in the near and far distance.  No critter sightings except a small lizard that darted across our path and a bird or two that we heard but never saw.

The hike down never takes as long and we headed to the western park which was a 45 minute drive through Tucson and past a military plane "boneyard". There had to be thousands of planes just lined up. I looked it up and it was basically where they go when they aren't flying any longer.  The passport stamp was different from the eastern side so my passport was stamped again.  It was later in the day so the ranger suggested several options.  We drove through their driving tour and stopped at the picnic area for a ranger-guided sunset tour/hike.  It wasn’t far but it was fairly steep.  I did take some satisfaction that I wasn’t huffing and puffing like others in our group but we did hike 3.4 miles earlier in the day so I’m sure we just had more practice.  Our rangers were very informed and answered many questions about the cacti, the area, the park itself, and its history.  He also chimed in some astronomy after the sun set (gorgeous!) and the planets and stars were popping out while we hiked back to our vehicles.  

We drove to our KOA site for the night to check it out and then decided to drive back to a barbecue place for a quick bite since it was later and it was so close.  We set up our campsite amidst some pretty big RVs and settled down for the night.  Tomorrow is White Sands!