National Monument – Page 3 – On the road with Jim

Arch Canyon Picture of the Week

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument has two vehicle loops that allow visitors to explore the park beyond the visitor center. On the west side of Highway 85 is the Puerto Blanco Drive, which is over 40 miles long and has stretches that require four-wheel drive. East of the highway is the Ajo Mountain Loop Drive, which is half the length and can be navigated in your family sedan (in good weather). Since I was only there for an afternoon, I opted to take the latter route.

I suppose if you didn’t stop to look at anything, you could follow this route through the Ajo Mountain Foothills in less than an hour traveling at the posted speed, but I spent more than three hours on the 19-mile loop because I was constantly hopping out of the truck taking pictures and gawking. In all that time, not once did I see another person—not even a ranger.

The road heads north-ish along the foothills’ west flank from the visitor’s center until it climbs over a pass at Arch Canyon. Then the road returns south through a valley between Ajo Mountain and its foothills. This week’s featured image was taken at the trail’s high point at Arch Canyon. There I was surprised to discover—an arch! Who knew? And it’s a good-sized one. I don’t recall seeing it in any of the park’s brochures, which I find odd.

Arch Canyon - At the north end of the Ajo Mountain Loop, you'll find the picnic grounds at Arch Canyon with an unnamed arch overlooking the area. — Arch Canyon – At the north end of the Ajo Mountain Loop, you’ll find the picnic grounds at Arch Canyon with an unnamed arch overlooking the area.

The arch doesn’t have a name on my topo maps. They only note the location of the natural arch. Maybe I could petition them to call it Queen Anne Arch. If the park service did that, maybe I could get her butt in the truck to see it. There is also a picnic area and campgrounds in Arch Canyon, but only tents are allowed. I guess that’s good because the camp would be packed with motor homes and fifth-wheels all year long.

This would have been a perfect opportunity to fly my drone so that I could get a shot that was closer and from a higher perspective. Alas—there’s a double drone prohibition in place here. Drones are not permitted to fly in National Park or National Monument airspace (although winged RC airplanes are permitted). Also, most of the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is designated as a wilderness area. Only a dozen yards on either side of the roads are the exception. All motorized vehicles are banned from wilderness areas.

While I was in the picnic area, I took some time to read the wonderful signs that the Park Service puts up to explain the views. I learned something that I’ve wondered about for years. The Ajo Mountain Range is part of the much larger ancient Pinacate volcanic field covering more than 1,900 square miles. The Pinacate Mountains are south of the border, about halfway to the Sea of Cortez. Over eons, this field had violent eruptions that spewed tons of magma, and alternately it had periods where the volcanoes spit out tons of ash and relatively little lava.

You can see a streak of light-colored rock near the ridge’s top in this week’s image. The darker rock is our old friend Rhyolite, the slow-moving magma found in the KOFA Range. The lighter streaks are from the ash falling from the sky and covering the ground. The ash layer is called Tuff, and I’ve seen it throughout Arizona—(and that’s the rest of the story, g’day – as Paul Harvey used to say).

You can see a larger version of Arch Canyon on its Web Page by clicking here. Come back next week to see the down hillside of the Ajo Mountain Loop.

Until next time — jw

Organ Pipe Cactus Picture of the Week

There’s nothing rare or unusual about the organ pipe cactus. They’re a common sight in the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja. I’m sure that the local folks view them the way Zonies do the saguaro; they’re just another part of the local landscape. But, the saguaro’s smaller cousin only reaches into the United States in the national monument that’s a half-hour south of Ajo, and that’s what makes them special to us.

Like the saguaro, the organ pipe grows best on south-facing rocky slopes of the Sonoran Desert. So why don’t they grow further north? Well, that’s because they’re less tolerant of frost and won’t survive a hard freeze. The specimens that we have in our cactus garden have to wear styrofoam cup hats to get through even our mild winter nights.

Another difference between the columnar cacti is obvious by looking at them. The giant saguaro grows with a single trunk and sprouts arms after it reaches 50 years—like a tree. On the other hand, the organ pipe’s arms sprout from a stem close to the ground resembling a bush. Internally, their structures are similar to porous skeletons that allow the flesh to expand and store water.

While the saguaro and organ pipe’s flower looks the same, the latter’s are only open at night and are pollinated by bats. The saguaro keeps its flowers open in the day, which lets bees and doves help the pollination. Like the saguaro, the organ pipes produce fruit during the rainy season about a tennis ball’s size. The flesh is bright red and supposedly tastes better than watermelon. After eating the sticky fruit, birds disperse the seeds by defecating from the branches of palo verde trees.

Organ Pipe Cactus - This cactus specimen commonly grows in the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja, but only crosses the border within the boundaries the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. — Organ Pipe Cactus – This cactus specimen commonly grows in the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja, but only crosses the border within the boundaries of the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

I drove a good distance on the Ajo Mountain Loop looking for a really nice organ pipe to photograph for this week’s featured image. The specimen in my image—called Organ Pipe Cactus—is a beaut, resembling an upside-down octopus on steroids. I’m a little upset that Ajo Mountain snuck in and photo-bombed my picture. At least you can see how far I traveled by how the mountain’s angel changed from last week’s photo. My references say that an organ pipe’s normal height is 10 to 16 feet, but this baby towered over my head and may have reached 20.

You can see a larger version of Organ Pipe Cactus on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week’s stop resulted in a surprise photo op. Be sure you come back and see what I found.

Until next time — jw

Ajo Mountain Picture of the Week

I turned my calendar over this week, and that means a couple of things to me; the best is that it’s the final quarter of 2020. In an average year, the hot weather finally breaks in a couple of weeks, because there’s an Arizona law that prohibits kids from Trick-or-Treating on a hot night. Of course, nothing about this year has been normal, so I’m not holding my breath. The Queen and I are looking forward to opening the house soon, and I’m anxious to take my drone out again and resume filming.

For October’s project, I drove south into the heart of the Sonoran Desert. As I said, we live along the northern edge of the saguaro country. We have a good population here in Congress and Wickenburg, but in other parts of the state, the giant cactus thrives. To show you, I traveled south of Ajo last week and drove the Ajo Mountain Drive loop in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. The road is unpaved, but a sedan will make it as long as it’s not raining.

A couple of years ago, Anne and I visited the monument for the first time. I wanted to take this loop, but we didn’t bring an off-road truck. Plus, when she saw a sign warning of smugglers and illegal aliens, she said no. The park is 10 miles from the Mexican border, and 30 miles south of the old copper mining town of Ajo (evidently the Spanish found wild garlic growing in the area, so that’s how it got the name). The road passes through the middle of the Goldwater Bombing Range, so I’d recommend not stopping along the way to pick wildflowers.

The Monument is the only place where you can see large stands of Organ Pipe Cactus. They’re more common south of the border, but on this side—not so much. The two columnar cacti (saguaro and organ pipe) grow side-by-side throughout the park. With the dry summer that we’ve had this year, I was pleased to see that the specimens in the monument looked healthy and watered. The rain patterns in lower Pima County are different from home, and they had a better monsoon than we did. The cacti are packed in down there—if you could ever call a desert lush, Organ Pipe would be an example.

Ajo Mountain - The volcanic peak rises above its foothills in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. — Ajo Mountain – The volcanic peak rises above its foothills in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Ajo Mountain is the name of this week’s featured image, and in it, I was trying to show two things. They are the volcanic mountain—rising above its surrounding foothills—and how many saguaros are growing per square mile. These giants also seem significantly taller than our home-boys.

You can see a larger version of Ajo Mountain on its Web Page by clicking here. Next week we’ll stop further along the drive and show you the organ pipe cactus from which the monument gets its name.

Until next time — jw

Cedar Breaks National Monument Utah Photo Shoot

Cedar Breaks Amphitheater - Cedar Breaks is a five-mile amphitheater that looks like someone took an ice cream scoop to it and left behind the candy toppings. The distant peak is Brian Head at over 11,000', where the ski resort is located. — Cedar Breaks Amphitheater – Cedar Breaks is a five-mile amphitheater that looks like someone took an ice cream scoop to it and left the candy toppings. The distant peak is Brian Head at over 11,000′, where the ski resort is located.

Yesterday could have been the perfect day to visit Cedar Breaks, the mini version of Bryce Canyon high on the eastern edge of the Markagunt Plateau in southern Utah. The muggy weather that had hung around all weekend moved out and it was dry and sunny with a light breeze from the west. As we entered the park the car’s temperature indicator said it was 68° outside. Conditions couldn’t have been better for an afternoon of hiking and picture-taking.

It wasn’t this nice the first time we visited Cedar Breaks. That was Memorial Day weekend in 2004. The Queen and I decided to get out-of-town to escape the 115° weekend. We had tossed the camping gear into the truck and left before dawn dressed in shorts and tee shirts. We drove straight through only stopping at the Flagstaff Mickey D’s for an egg-a-muffin. That truck didn’t have an outside temperature gauge and it barely made it up the 12% grade. We still had the air-conditioning on when we stopped in the parking lot. It was a sunny afternoon, but when we opened the doors, a blast of Arctic air greeted us and chilled us to our bones. We scrambled to find our jackets. At 10,300 feet, Cedar Breaks can be hostile.

Tee shirts and shorts were the perfect uniforms yesterday. That wasn’t a problem. The issue that I had was in the air. Up here, it’s normally clear and pristine, protected by its remoteness, but because somebody’s trying to burn down California, the air was filled with smoke that traveled across Nevada. That smoke-filled air is not conducive for taking detailed landscape panoramas. I had to change my mindset and look for more intimate images.

From the visitor’s center, there’s a short one-mile hike to Spectra Point—an overlook that has a grove of large Bristlecone Pine trees. I’ve always admired these Methuselah trees for how they live for thousands of years in places where nothing else will grow. I had heard about them on my last trip, but it was spring thaw with snow covering parts of the trail and the rest being a muddy bog. That wasn’t an excuse today, so I put on my new camera backpack and balanced the tripod on my shoulder and set off to conquer nature.

Fins, hoodoos, and arches. — Fins, hoodoos, and arches – As the soft sandstone erodes it breaks down into long structures called fins. As the fins erode they leave individual spires called hoodoos. During that process, the bottom of the fin may fail and collapse leaving a window or arch. There are examples of all three in this photo. Can you spot the arch?

The trail actually leads to two overlooks, the second one being Ramparts. As I started skipping along I considered going the extra mile—as they say. It looked doable on the map because the parking lot is 10,300′ and Spectra point is 10,285′. A mere 15-foot drop—posh, child’s work. Ramparts, however, is 9,985′. I decided to see how I felt when I reached Spectra Point—after all, I have ridden a bike five miles every morning, so I’m buff … Right?

My skipping immediately ceased when I turned a corner and reached the base of a 300′ hill that’s not on the map. You can guess what my decision was already. I can walk three miles in an hour at home, but in the thin air, my trip took 45 minutes. I spent an hour shooting trees and views along the rim before heading back to Archie—our truck, where Anne was reading a book. You’d think she’d have carried the camera bag or a picnic basket or something. When I opened the back door in my sweat-soaked shirt and loaded the equipment while panting, all I got was, “How was your little hike dear?”

We spent today recuperating—she broke a nail—and I processed a couple of photos to show you. At dinner, we’ll decide where next to explore. We’ve concluded that the smoke has permeated Utah and we’ll just have to work around it, but we’re going to have fun even if it kills us.

Until next time — jw