Tag: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

Organ Pipe part 2

The sunrise this morning was spectacular!

Sunrise from the campsite

Today we took another scenic drive, the Puerto Bueno road. It is labeled as needing high clearance, but I think most passenger cars could do it. Certainly a basic SUV could manage it. I didn’t take as many pictures as yesterday of the plants, because I did so many yesterday, but I still got some nice shots to remind me of the area. Might as well get to it!

The front plant is a teddy bear cholla while the back on is a chain cholla.
The organ pipes live right on the rocks
Top and bottom of hill is solidified slow moving magma called “ryolite.” Middle is “tuff” or solidified ash
We found one cholla blooming
Close up of bloom
Bonita Well was a popular way stop in years past
Corrals at Bonita Well
Pretty much the perfect saguaro at Bonita Well
Surveillance equipment for the border

This is the first time I had see “The Wall” in person. It is just as ugly and intrusive as I had heard. I know we need to keep people from crossing illegally into the most inhospitable part of Arizona (they DIE!), but having a big area literally plowed clear in a National Monument seems wrong.

Note the person-sized gates on this section.

Climbing over the hills

After we finished the road, we headed to the historic town of Ajo for some ice cream. The town originally was a company town founded to support a huge open pit copper mine, the New Cornelia, now closed. Some of the by-products of the original mine are still being sold for other purposes.

The dry containment ponds from Ajo copper mine. They stretch much longer than my camera could photograph
The mine overlook

The town itself has a very pretty historic district including this lovely town square. Surprisingly the town still looks pretty prosperous in contrast with other mining towns after a closure.

The historic square of Ajo

We are packing up today to head to Quartzsite tomorrow. Going to camp in the desert with friends for a while. It will probably be difficult to post due to data issues with the hundreds of thousands of people who show up for the winter, but we will get to some other towns off and on.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, part 1

Warning: picture heavy!

We left Willcox to head to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Like Joshua Tree, Organ Pipe was protected specifically for one type of cacti. Organ Pipes grow mostly in Mexico, but the almost all of the US ones are protected in the monument. As we drove into the Sonoran Desert, I noted again just how lush this desert is compared to the Mohave or the Great Basin deserts I am more familiar with. We drove through some lovely mountainous country and reached the campground about 3:00. While I had reserved a nice long site, we had the devil of a time getting into it. The entry road is only one lane and the pad was only one lane, but my motorhome take 2 1/2 – 3 lanes to turn right! We ended up going to the other side of the pull through site and backing in. The resulting location is wonderful though with decent screening by native plants all around us. We have saguaro, organ pipes, mesquite, teddy bear cholla, and brittle bush just outside the door.

Organ pipe at the edge of our campsite. I didn’t it it, but someone did.

We generally just got set up and relaxed. We had shopped in Willcox, so Kevin made smash burgers on the Blackstone grill for dinner. Yum.

Today we drove a wonderful interpretive nature trail – the Ajo Mountain Loop. It is just over 20 miles, and we took a leisurely 3 hours, stopping a lot for pictures and to read the information about each numbered stop. I am just going to drop lots and lots of pictures with captions.

There were windows/arches. These two had a trail to them.
This little window was more hidden
You know I love rocks, this is Ajo Mountain
Baby organ pipes use other plants to protect them
Baby saguaros also nestle in other plants for protection
This shows all the spikes on a mature organ pipe
There are other plants. These yellow flowers are blooming next to a brittle bush
A dead saguaro showing the substructure
A dead cholla showing its structure. Interesting shapes!

There were a few birds out and about.

The nest of a cactus wren
Some kind of hawk
Another hawk
A small bird that visited the campsite. Great camouflage!

We got gas at Lukeville, 5 miles away right on the Mexican border. The gas station was actually closer to Mexico than the entry to the border crossing! We had fajitas made on the Blackstone, and generally just relaxed until we’ll after the sun went down. Tomorrow is another scenic drive, so I hope to post more pictures then. We head to Quartzsite the day after.