Friday, February 17, 2017

Pipe Organ Cactus National Monument

Since we struck out with hiking at Sonoran Desert National Monument, we were certainly looking forward to going to the other reason we stopped in Gila Bend. So we drove the 60 miles straight south to the visitor center at the Pipe Organ Cactus National Monument. This is another park that is off the normal tourist path--out in the middle of no where. Here we got educated about the park's name-sake. Early settlers named these unusual plants pipe organ cactus because that's what they look like.

This is the only place in the United States that these cacti live. If we drove ten minutes further south, we would be in Mexico. We would also be in that country's sister park that also protects them. Because they certainly don't like cold weather, this is the furthest north that pipe organ cacti can tolerate.

As we look out across the desert, we can see the varied cacti. When we traveled through Arizona two years ago, we were fascinated with these guys that we don't get to see in the Midwest. So today was a refresher course on Cacti 101 for us.

The ranger suggested we drive the 21-mile Ajo Mountain loop trail through the park to get a good view of all the cacti. There was also a 16-page guide that described what we were looking at during each stop on the loop.

The guide described the ocotillo plants that grow twice as tall as Mark's six-foot frame. They've gotten enough rain that the willowy arms are now covered with green leaves.

These tiny leaves line the spiky branches and help with photosynthesis. But when it gets too dry, the plants will drop the leaves to protect the precious moisture content in those long branches. This was the first time we saw an ocotillo leafed out this year.

Denisa was more excited to see that some of the ocotillo were even blooming this early. Two years ago we waited until April to catch our first glimpse of these fiery red blooms.

The hummingbirds and bees love these curious blooms almost as much as Denisa loves them.

Our trail guide also pointed out the adorable teddy bear cholla. (The last word is pronounced choy-oh--we assume everyone knows how to pronounce teddy bear.) The only thing cuddly about these spiky cacti is the name. They are engineered so they break off one of those spiky fingers if anyone gets close. In fact, they are called "jumping cactus" because they seem to be able to jump off to attack hikers that just walk by without even touching them. That's why Denisa is keeping her distance from this soft and cuddly little teddy bear cholla.

Its cousin is the chain-fruit cholla. From a distance, they look like they have clusters of green grapes hanging from their branches.

Up close we could see that the "grapes" were actually chains of the cacti blooms like pearls in a necklace.

We stopped to see the natural arch on our drive around the loop. We thought about hiking to the arch, but we were saving our energy for another hike--Bull Pasture.

There are two different options to hike up to Bull Pasture. The blue trail is longer, with a more gradual climb; while the red trail is shorter with a heart-pounding elevation gain. Whichever way we took to the top of bull pasture, we were taking the other trail back to make a loop. The advice we were given is to take the red trail to the top while your legs are fresh.

So we headed up (and up and up) on what felt like a mile and half stair stepper. The last half-mile was especially brutal. The only good news was we were in the shade part of the time.

We were hiking in the shade of this tall rock fin as we gained altitude fast.

When we got to the top of the trail, we were a little disappointed to find there were no bulls and no pasture at Bull Pasture. What we did get was a beautiful view of Ajo Peak in front of us. Four guys passed us on the trail, and they were headed on from this point to reach the top of Mount Ajo. They invited us to go with them, but Denisa was content to stay at this elevation.

Mark didn't opt for the longer hike. But he did scrambled up to the peak right behind us, just to get the view from there. That valley far below is where we were walking not long ago.

We stopped to eat our picnic in the shade of a small tree. We were blessed with another beautiful view for our lunch this day!

From our vantage point at the top, we can see the giant fin on the left that we hiked beside. We'll now head down that stair-stepper to get back to Estes Valley to continue our hike.

That means it is time for our continued cacti education, including the star of today's park--the organ pipe cactus. We found this cute little guy on the hike, and the cactus looks good too.

Our trail guide pointed out this specimen, with wildly flailing pipe organ arms.

Maybe it looked unusual because it had an unusual growth in the center. Occasionally, a pipe organ stem will form a crest, when the growth cells get confused and don't make the usual circular columns. Scientists don't know what causes this interesting crest.

It was fun to see the pipe organ cacti, especially since this is the only place in the United States where they grow. But we still love the saguaro cacti too. It is quite dry here, so the saguaro cacti grow very slowly in this national monument. A saguaro may be 90 years old before it starts to grow it's first limb. As we look over a hillside, we see lots of old cacti.

Denisa's favorite trail activity is to try to recreate the angle and look of these saguaro appendages.

Mark thinks this is silly, but he agrees to take the pictures anyway.

Denisa thinks he doesn't like it because he's just not very creative at picking a fun cactus to imitate.

Denisa, on the other hand(s), is very creative with her saguaro imitations.

She did not try to imitate this sad saguaro skeleton. It's interesting to see the frame under all those spines and green flesh.

It's amazing that these plants have lived in this rugged environment for so long. One of the ways that they survive their early years is under the protection of a "nurse tree." The saguaro will eventually outgrow the tree that protected it, and may even cause its death from taking over its water supply.

In the picture above, the nurse tree is the lime green palo verde tree. It's trunk and branches are a bright lime green, and they can complete photosynthesis to provide food for the tree even when it has no leaves. Isn't this Cacti 101 interesting?!?

We've seen a lot of barrel cactus on our walks through the desert, but this was the biggest. It's the first time we have seen a barrel cactus that was as big as a barrel.

As we finished our 4 mile loop hike, Mark is working on his cactus imitation skills. He has decided to give up on the saguaros, and decided to try a chollo instead. Let's just say that it looks like we need to stick around the desert for a little while longer to get his skills up to speed.

We finished up our loop drive, and read every word of our informative Ajo Mountain Drive Guide. We were sad that we couldn't hike in the desert near Gila Bend because of the violence caused by drug trafficking there. We found out that Pipe Organ Cactus National Monument closed for the same reason a few years ago. But it was re-opened in 2014, and today we felt very safe.

We've been blessed again by beautiful weather as we got to see another of God's creative creations--the organ pipe cactus in the southern tip of Arizona.

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