Saguaro National Park feels like an urban park. Tucson is smack in the middle of it. The park has two sections, one of each side of the city, which is right over the ridge. We had just been to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, where we were the only people on the trails. We spent the morning driving across the Tohono O’Odham Nation, which seemed largely unpopulated. When we got to the Western section of Saguaro, the place was buzzing. There were a lot of visitors, on foot, in their cars and RVs, and on their bikes. There were people everywhere.

I wish that we had gone to Saguaro first. I was distracted by all the people, which got in the way of the fact that the park, like Organ Pipe, is strikingly beautiful. Tucson is too far north for the organ pipe cacti to grow, and the saguaro has filled the void here. The saguaro seem more like a forest here, and the view was green in every direction. The small cacti were different too, with a seemingly larger variety of cholla, barrel cacti and prickly pear. There also seemed to be more shrubs -mesquite, creosote, ironwood, palo verde and ocotillo. These are all beautiful. But the saguaro, well, they give this place its name.

The saguaro in Saguaro National Park grow faster than the ones we had seen at Organ Pipe National Monument. The conditions are different this far north, and apparently more favorable. A saguaro here will grow an arm much sooner, and they will grow taller. We were lucky enough to see the saguaro in bloom. The volunteer at the visitor center talked about how this was a stressful time for the saguaro, since they were putting so much water and energy into the blossom and later fruit production. The pleats along the sides of the cacti help it expand and contract depending upon how much water it has stored up. I was tempted to touch a saguaro. Would it feel soft and leave a mark where my finger pressed into it? Or would it be firm like a melon? I chickened out and decided not to touch a saguaro (what if it had little spines that I couldn’t see like the cactus on my desk), but the volunteer behind the desk told me that they are more like a melon.

I remember hearing once that the saguaro are dying out due to disease. There really isn’t a disease attacking the cacti. Rather it is human activity that is messing things up (yet again). Invasive plants have brought the threat of fire to the desert. The Sonoran Desert isn’t an ecosystem dependent upon fire, and most of the plants are not adapted to cycles of fire. The invasive grasses can catch on fire, and the fire will spread, killing the saguaro.

Another, bigger threat is land development. Every new house or strip mall means less habitat for the the saguaro to grow. The park must be under a lot of pressure from the growth of Tucson. The city was much smaller in 1933 when the first district of the park was established. The second section on the western side of town was added in the sixties, after the city had experienced a huge population boom. It is hard to imagine how much habitat disappeared then, and how important the park is for preserving saguaro habitat.

While the saguaro is losing on habitat, javelinas seem to be expanding their range. We learned a lot about the javelina at the park. A young, very enthusiastic intern gave a great presentation about the javelina (also known as the collared peccary). He had a lot of information about the javelinas, including recordings of their various sounds, and was even able to steer the conversation around the old guy who wanted to talk about the one time he was walking his dogs and they saw a group of javelinas. I was thinking the javelinas were pretty cute, until I saw their teeth. (I wouldn’t want to run into them with my dogs like that guy did.) Best of all, we learned that javelinas have enzymes in their saliva that allows them to eat cactus spines. This explained the prickly pear that we had seen in Organ Pipe that had what looked like big bites taken out of them.

While my wife completed the Not-So-Junior Ranger program, I walked a nice little trail with many different kinds of cacti and other Sonoran Desert plants. I learned the identity of many of the plants we had seen in Organ Pipe. We took the scenic drive and stopped at the Signal Hill Petroglyphs. Maybe I misunderstood the ranger when he said it was a steep trail but we looked like we could handle it. The short trail consisted of an easy slope, with some stairs built by the CCC in during the depression. The petroglyphs were pretty amazing to see, but more amazing is that no one is quite sure what the 800 year old Hohokam writings mean. Art? Sacred text? Communication between groups? I remember seeing lots of petroglyphs when I was a kid, but never understood how old they were, and that they were actually covered into the dark weathered areas of the sandstone.

Then, after a short hike, we drove into Tucson in search of tamales. Gates Pass Road is gorgeous and the scenic pullouts were beginning to be filled with people driving out of the town in search of a sunset. The sun on the hills as it set was stunning. Once one the other side of the mountains, we were in Tucson with its urban sprawl encroaching on more of the Saguaro habitat. (Nothing against Tucson – every city encroaches on habitat!)

Watch a video about javelinas! Here’s another video!

The National Park Service website has a lot of information about the found in the park.