I have a map of the United States in a prominent position in my apartment. It is hung so that the southern U.S. is at eye level. I spend a lot of time studying the map and for years have been fascinated by a large green square on the border of Arizona and Mexico: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

I have not been to the Southwest since I was ten when we took a trip in the big family station wagon. We went to the Four Corners monument and I ran around in a circle, running into Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and then Utah. I don’t remember doing much beyond that in Arizona. My wife suggested we take a trip there, so I could truthfully claim having been to 49 states. I was determined to visit Organ Pipe on this trip.

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument recently had the distinction of being the nation’s “Most Dangerous National Park,” due to its secluded location on the Mexican border, and the illegal activity associated with that location. The park was closed to most visitor activity for eleven years, after a ranger was murdered while pursuing drug smugglers in 2002. I read several articles written over the years that gave the impression that smugglers were streaming across the border and the area was lawless, controlled not by the U.S. government, but by the drug cartels of Mexico. I read several others that talked about the huge increase in Border Patrol agents in the years since Ranger Kris Eggle‘s death. While this park had the potential to be dangerous, this was definitely not our experience.

As we drove down from Phoenix, we passed miles of of barren landscape. While there we were some strikingly beautiful stretches, most of the time, the land looked like it had been abused. After learning about cyanobacterial soil crusts, I understood why this land had never fully recovered from the grazing, mining or other uses. Entering the park was almost like hiking into a forest after being in a clear cut – the undisturbed desert had a impressive diversity of plant life, and was greener than I think I ever imagined a desert could be.

The Sonoran Desert covers most of southern Arizona, parts of New Mexico and California, and most of the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California. It has two rainy seasons: Intense monsoon thunderstorms of summer, and more gentle and soaking rains of winter. These two distinct rainy seasons account for the huge diversity of life in the desert, earning it the nickname “The Green Desert.”

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument preserves over 500 square miles of the Sonoran Desert. It is an UNESCO Biosphere Preserve, and it is one of the few places in the United States where the organ pipe cactus grows. There are over 28 species of cacti in the park, and the organ pipe and saguaro dominate.

My first impression was that the saguaro are strikingly beautiful. They can live for 200 years, don’t flower until they are about 65 years old, and grow their first limbs around 90. Like any plants, the more favorable its conditions, the faster and larger it grows. Some saguaro growing where water is scare, can live their entire lives without having the resources to grow an arm. I had assumed that the saguaro would be a tough competitor, but young cacti need the shade of a mesquite or creosote bush to shelter them. We were lucky to be at the park during the saguaro bloom. The blossoms were a beautiful white, and ringed the tops of the columns and arms.

Organ pipe cacti are equally as impressive. They usually bloom later in the year (June and July), and are open only at night and are pollinated by bats. One of the rangers told us that there had been a hot stretch earlier than usual this year and some organ pipes were blooming. He recommended we get up early to see if we could catch one before the blossom closed. We were lucky enough to find one organ pipe cactus blossom – right in the campground! The cactus itself grows in a giant cluster of columns. These cacti don’t require a nurse plant to shade them. In fact, they crave heat and protection from frost and often grow on south-facing slopes. The monument is the edge of its Northern range, and many of the cacti we saw had some scarring that may have come from the cold.

We took the Ajo Mountain drive when we arrived. The 21 mile drive took us through the many micro environments of the park, over washes and up into somewhat higher elevations. The landscape changed dramatically throughout the drive, and we had spectacular views of the hills of Mexico. We hiked up the short Arch Canyon trail toward a natural arc in the hillside. I watched for glimpses of big horn sheep, rattlesnakes or a gila monster, but given that we were hiking in the heat of the day there wasn’t much wildlife to see.

We were lucky that the heat wasn’t so intense while we were there. It was hot, but not so scorching that we couldn’t hike. A week or two before we arrived, I called the visitor center to get the rangers’ ideas on what were the best things to do with our time. “Plan how you will deal with the heat,” the ranger on duty told me. “We just came out of a stretch of high temperatures and you need to be ready.” We lucked out.

The rangers on staff were very helpful and friendly. Two rangers gave us recommendations and told us their favorite hikes in the park. My wife earned a patch in the Not-So-Junior Ranger program. (I was very jealous and wished I had filled out the booklet!) The rangers really seemed to love the park and wanted us to love the park as well.

We set up camp at the Twin Peaks Campground near the visitor center just before dusk. We had hardly seen anyone all day, and the campground was just as empty. We strategically picked a tent-only site with a ramada that was far from the bathroom lights and other campers, but close to a water spigot. Our neighbors were so quiet, we were barely aware that they were there. As far as car camping in a large campground goes, this was pretty spectacular. We sat on our picnic table, ate our dinner, and I birdwatched as dusk approached.

The stars were impressive and the sky was truly dark. The dark sky was one of the reasons I wanted to camp at Organ Pipe. Living in an urban megalopolis, it is hard to remember that there are actually stars out there. We can see only the brightest stars – Orion, the Big Dipper and the planets. We were able to see the Little Dipper, the North Star and constellations that I remembered from childhood, but whose names I could not quite recall. My wife thought it was amazing to see stars all the way to the horizon.

After a beautiful sunrise, we set out for an early beat-the-heat hike to an abandoned silver mine. The terrain was fairly gentle, and took us over hillsides and through washes. The cholla really impressed me on this hike. There were so many different kinds along the trail – each with formidable spines and segments that would happily break off into your skin. In fact, that is how the cholla spreads – a section will break off into an animal’s fur, someone’s skin, or my wife’s boot, and will eventually drop off into a (hopefully) favorable place to grow.

We had the trail to ourselves, and didn’t see another soul. The mesquite trees were in bloom, and we watched hummingbirds buzz through the air around the flowers. There were vivd black wasps with orange wings – tarantula hawk wasps who capture tarantulas, bring them back to the nest and lay their eggs on them, so that the still tarantula becomes the young wasps first meal. Most of the birds we saw were Turkey Vultures riding the thermals, or Gila Woodpeckers ducking in and out their homes in the saguaros. We found some Prickly Pear that had clearly been some animal’s lunch. It looked like whatever had eaten it, ate the spikes and all. All around us where saguaro, organ pipes and cholla.

Organ Pipe was a great surprise. I had no idea it was going to so spectacular, and I am already thinking of when we go back. There are many more hikes to do and I want to spend a couple nights camping in the more remote campground (just four campsites – no bathrooms or water spigots). Mostly, I want to explore the park more fully, and discover more of what it has to offer. I feel we have only just scratched the surface. This place was so spectacular and so beautiful, that is it a little difficult to write about. It is hard to capture its essence.

Have you been to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument? What are your must see sites?

For more info about the Sonoran Desert Ecosystem, the National Park System has a great introduction.

For some stunning pictures of Organ Pipe, visit Cindy McIntyre’s blog.