March 19, 2019
My brother had not seen a saguaro close up before, so he was excited about going to the national park named after the giant of the cactus family. It was an easy 95 mile drive to the Gilbert Ray Pima County Campground west of Tucson, where we stayed the night. There is no campground in the Saguaro National Park, but Glibert Ray is close, only 5 miles from the visitor center.
Creosote flower and fuzzy seed pod
The land around our campsite was thick with a variety cactus species, desert trees like Palo verde and creosote, and plenty of wild flowers.
The giant saguaros were the most prominent though, towering over the landscape and covering the mountain slopes surrounding us for as far as the eye could see.
We drove on a scenic dirt road loop through the national park and enjoyed observing all the interesting shapes of the saguaros. Some had no branches, some had multiple, that resembled arms raised in all combinations of positions and some were contorted in unsymetrical positions.
Being here in the spring the desert wasn't a harsh environment at all, with all the plant life looking so fresh. One could imagine the summer heat would be almost unbearable though, knowing these plants evolved to withstand it with so little water.
On our way to Yuma the next morning we drove up to Gates Pass where we stopped to see a fantastic view of the desert valley where we stayed.