Desert Discovery Nature Trail

While I often say that the only thing we can count on in life is that it will change, this (former) control freak is still adjusting to that constant change. So, with every single detail of my life in transition, I left the mountains and headed for the desert. If I'm honest, I'm not as drawn to the arid landscape of the desert as I am to the rivers and redwoods of the mountains. Even though the landscape doesn't necessarily draw me in, Mother Nature certainly does, so I have a whole list of places where she and I can connect while I'm here.

As always, I start with short, easy, trails that are close to my home base. I had a companion with me today, so we chose this trail because it is a flat, paved path with benches. This place is so easy to find that I didn't even have to turn around to get back to the parking lot! Now, this trailhead is in the Saguaro National Park, so you are supposed to pay for a pass before parking and getting out of your car. We're just going to pretend that happened and move on. (I did try to buy a pass after the fact, but the Ranger was at lunch. I promise to go back so I'm not cheating next time.) One of the rules we did follow was to brush our shoes off before and after our walk, to prevent us carrying invasive seeds into and out of the park.

Whenever I'm out in the desert, I can't help but stare at the saguaro cacti. They just look like cowboys with really tall 10-gallon hats who are pointing as if they want you to walk in all sorts of directions. And this place had a TON of saguaro, from tiny little babies to super tall giants, to dried up skeletons. And the biology of the saguaro is really fascinating as well. They are essentially wooden sticks inside of green flesh that keeps water inside. They proudly display their history of rainy seasons and drought on the curves of their bodies, and the internal temperature of the saguaro can be up to 20 degrees cooler or warmer than the external temperature, which makes them perfect shelter for the birds, bats, and bees that they house. I mean, how do they do that? They are just green fleshy things sitting out in 120-degree heat and they're like..."come on in, it's a cool 100 inside". Amazing.

Saguaro aren't the only types of cacti in the desert, of course. Just like the redwood forests that I'm used to, the vegetation is diverse. I'm not as familiar with desert plants but I do know that we saw prickly pear, barrel cacti, palo verde, several different plants that look like bushes and trees, and mesquite. Right now, all of the Palo Verde plants were this lush, bright, yellow green.

Just like the forests in the mountains, there are layers of life here. Because of the lack of water, desert plants tend to keep a perimeter around themselves. That doesn't stop a bird from spitting out a seed while sitting on a branch, and that seed taking root in the shade. We saw one little saguaro with the branch of another plant growing through it. He said, "thank you for the shade that allowed me to grow, yes, you may touch my insides". Right, that's a lot. I told you at the beginning that I have always seen saguaros as cowboys, makes sense that I would think about them talking.

Enough about the conversations in my head, let's get back to the layers. The dying cacti provide the same support to their surroundings as fallen redwood trees, giving shade, shelter, and food to smaller animals and decomposing to nourish the ground for other plants to flourish. Turns out, the living cacti also provide support to the fallen. We saw a few bushes supporting saguaro skeletons throughout the park. Every time I head out on a path, Mother Nature provides me with an example of how to live life.

As we walked through the loop, we were treated to 360-degree views. I know there were houses way off in the distance, but you couldn't see any trace of them. The desert seems so extremely expansive and a little surreal. There wasn't a speck of cloud in the sky and the mountains look like they are a movie background, rather than something you could actually climb. Believe me, I will be climbing some of them. Ok, you got me. I won't be climbing them; I'll be driving up to a parking spot and then hiking a little more for the view. But I will definitely be taking in some sunrises and sunsets while I'm here.