Organ Pipe Catus National Monument

We spent three days in Sierra Vista with Steve's daughter and son in law, Beth and Aaron. Aaron is stationed at Ft. Huachuca in Sierra Vista. They have a lovely home, an adorable dog named Dexter and two silly cats. Everyone gets along fine, thankfully, and our dogs were happy to have a yard to walk around in again. As you can see, Ben made himself right at home.

Ben on the beanbag chair

All three days were spent making repairs and monkeying with the solar panel, which Steve finally was able to get working correctly again after several trips back and forth to Harbor Freight. Sierra Vista is about 4,600 ft elevation, but the Huachuca mountains are higher, and were getting snow while it was 61° down in the valley.

Snow on the Huachuca mountains

We departed Sierra Vista on Feb 2 and headed west for OPCNM. This is a little over 200 mile drive mostly through the Tohono O'odham reservation. It is again a beautiful but stark environment. We arrived at the park around 3pm and got all set up.

This park is the northern range for Organ pipe cactus. They do not tolerate cold well at all, so you are pretty much guaranteed to not have any freezing temps here in winter. Winter is one of the two rainy seasons at the park, but we did not experience any rain during our visit. It has been sunny and warm - 60's to high 70's during the days, 40's at night. Beautiful sunrises and sunsets and the full moon over the mountains is stunning. 

Sunrise

Sunset

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are also lots of Saguaro cactus here, as well as several kinds of mesquite, creosote bush and lots more plant life. It is pretty green for a desert! These yellow flowers are Brittlebush. The plant growing in this mesquite is mesquite mistletoe, and man does it smell good!

Organ Pipe cactus

Saguaro forest

 

Ocotillo starting to flower

 

 

 

 

 

Brittlebush in flower

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Palo Verde, state tree of AZ

Mesquite Mistletoe in flower

 

We took a couple of hikes, one day to an old ranch and one day to an old mine. There was gold and silver mining in these hills. There's a HUGE gold mine pit in the nearby town of Ajo. Mine closed in the 1980's but it is still a big mess. Not much going on in Ajo these days.

Their view!

History of the area

Ranch building built of adobe brick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mine building built of stone

Mine shafts. Don't fall in!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We thought about driving to Puerto Penasco, at the northern edge of the Sea of Cortez but it is a 75 mile drive each way and that is too long to leave the dogs alone in the camper. We did head into Mexico today, just to say we did. Drove around a little and came right back to the good old US.

 

Full moon rising over mountains

Our campsite

A very green desert

Structure of buckhorn cholla

Hedgehog cactus

Barrel cactus

    

Saguaro spines!

Buckhorn Cholla. looks fuzzy but not

Organ pipe and Saguaro nursery

Interior of Saguaro - cellulose!

 

Cactus Wren singing

Today is our last day here. We drove out to Quitobiquito, one of the only natural springs in the whole Sonoran desert. Beautiful oasis. There is two endangered species there, a pupfish (little bigger than a guppy) and a mud turtle. We did see the pupfish! If you expand this photo you should be able to see them.

Endangered Dessert Pupfish

The drive to the spring runs right along The Wall. The border of the park is The Border, and there is a Mexican highway just the other side of it. I guess it would have been easy enough to walk over before the wall, but then you had miles and miles of Sonoran desert to walk through first....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stats for those interested: $10/night with Golden Age pass. Unheated bathrooms, solar hot water showers only, no hot water in sinks. Solar showers not so hot in the morning....and gets used up quickly in the afternoon. Works maybe in theory but not so much in practice. 

I have to say, these national parks do not make it easy. You have to be prepared to camp here with all the boondocking gadgets - solar panels, propane heaters, generator, etc. I can't see families doing this and there are no families here. So they have to stay in the more expensive RV parks in the areas if they want to visit. I know the NPS is woefully behind in their maintenance - but this seems more of a structural issue to me. Was there ever electric and water at national parks and they have been let go? Or is it now too expensive to add that infrastructure in? Or maybe they keep it this way on purpose so that only those prepared for these conditions camp here?  Not sure, but either way it is a more difficult camping experience. I am sure some prefer this, but I for one do not mind my creature comforts of water and electricity. 

Tomorrow we head back to Sierra Vista and Beth and Aaron's for a week of hiking and biking around the area.  Thanks for traveling with us!