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| Don't let my smile fool you. It was miserably hot. |
116. That was the forecasted high temperature for
Tucson for the day we were going to be hiking through the Sonoran Desert in
Saguaro National Park. And, unlike our
day in Big Bend, Arizona’s bizarre refusal to go on Daylight Savings Time meant
that sunrise was going to be at 5:17 that morning. There was no way we were going to be up and
at ‘em to beat the heat by then.
We were
actually pleased with ourselves for getting up, grabbing a quick Starbucks
breakfast (since breakfast at this JW wasn’t included, even for Marriott
Rewards Gold members..Grrrrr), and made it to the King Canyon trail head by
8:00. By then, the temperature was about
100 degrees. And, let me tell you, 100
Sonoran Desert degrees is NOT the same as 100 Chihuahuan Desert degrees. The higher elevation of the Chihuahuan Desert
where Big Bend is located makes the heat much more tolerable. There are occasional cool breezes, and being
under even a small amount shade makes a big difference. But not here.
Not in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona.
The breeze that blows in this desert feels more like you’re standing
fully clothed in a sauna with a hair dryer on its hottest setting churning
super-heated air straight into your face the entire time. It’s miserable.
But we are
Boyds, and just visiting the air-conditioned visitors’ center and calling it a
day isn’t what we do. So, there we were,
starting a 2.2-mile trail in heat that would keep us inside all day if we were
at home in Indiana. We each had water,
and Kinley sweetly volunteered to carry the backpack containing the back-up
water.
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| Kinley takes a water break on the trail. |
The first
part of the trail was an ascent that gave me flashbacks to Carlsbad Caverns
minus the dark and the cave-swallow stench and with the addition of sweltering
heat. We had to stop every hundred yards
or so for me to catch my breath and take a drink. I like to tell myself that the rest of the
family needed to stop, too, but I’m definitely the weak link. I am not ashamed.
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| Frequent water breaks were a necessity. |
I spent most
of the first part of the trail looking down at my feet and the path in front of
me, trying not to trip on the stones that made up the old CCC road that we were
following for the first mile. We were
surrounded by massive saguaro cacti, and we amused ourselves by imagining them
as people – the one with the perfect dance hold that we decided would be on
DWTS (Dancing With The Saguaros), the ones that looked like twins, the ones
that looked like a little family. Josh
and Knox also had some fun naming the varieties of cacti that weren’t familiar
to us.
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| Even Len would give a 10 to this cactus's dance hold. |
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| This MASSIVE saguaro caught Knox's attention. |
We saw
several lizards that ran away, tails curled into the air showing stripes that
were only visible as they ran. From the
trail, we noticed that most of the saguaros had red fruits growing out of their
tops bringing vibrant color to the otherwise brown landscape. Many of the prickly saguaros had visible
gashes and holes that provided shelter for birds and other creatures. Standing guard along the path like sentinels
on a 200-year-long watch, the aged plants rarely looked as regular as
cartoonists and old western movies would have us believe. Few of them had one large central shaft and
two shorter arms reaching upward on each side; they were as different from each
other as we humans are. Saguaros don’t
start growing arms until they are about 65 years old in this area of the
desert, and the ones with multiple arms were probably about 150 years old. Can you imagine surviving those harsh
conditions for so long? God is so
creative.
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| Typical saguaros were far less common than you'd expect. |
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| There really is a lizard in the middle of this picture. I promise. |
Turning onto
the Gould Mine Trail, we ended up back
at our car by 9:45. A ranger who had
noticed our car in the parking lot and was worried about us hiking in the heat
walked over carrying a backpack full of Gatorades and protein bars. Kinley was feeling nauseated and overheated,
so she and Knox both took the ranger up on the offer of electrolyte-replacing
liquid. The ranger wouldn’t accept any
payment and assured us that she was just glad we had gotten an early start.
Next we
drove to the visitors’ center so that the kids could do the Junior Ranger program,
and a special ranger-led program about the harvesting of saguaro fruit was
starting. Native peoples still have
permission to use the traditional long cross tool made from dried saguaro ribs
to collect the fruits within the park, and we got to taste a sample from the
small cactus garden just outside the visitors’ center. The fresh pulp was tasteless to me but it had
the consistency of poppy seeds. We tried
a piece of the fruit that had been sundried next, and it was sweeter.
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| The fruit of the saguaro is ripe when it's red. |
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| A rib from a dead saguaro is used to harvest the fruits. |
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| The inside of the fruit is a beautiful pink color. |
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| The dried fruits could be found on the ground and were much sweeter. |
Once the
kids finished their badge requirements and recited the pledge, we asked a
ranger if the trail to the petroglyphs was too long for the current
temperature. A white-haired man behind
the counter gave us a confused look and said, “It’s just two blocks!” We took that as permission and drove to the
Signal Hill Trail. Kinley stayed in the
car since she was worried that she’d start feeling icky again, but the rest of
us traipsed down a few rock stairs and then up a hill on another trail
constructed by the CCC. Thank you, FDR.
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| The meaning of these ancient symbols is unknown. |
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| This one made up of concentric circles was my favorite. |
As we passed
the sign warning of rattlesnakes, we took care to scan the dusty path leading
up to the rocky area where ancient peoples had carved symbols that had survived
for untold years in spite of the harsh desert conditions. The images were simple and strange and
beautiful, but it was far too hot to do much more than snap a couple of
pictures before heading back to the car.
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| We were given fair warning! |
What
followed was quite possibly the hottest drive of my life. A friend of a friend recommended Rosa’s for
lunch, and it was about 45 minutes from the park through Tucson traffic. The A/C was on full blast the whole time, and
yet every part of me, even the backs of my knees continued to sweat profusely
as we made the seemingly-never-ending journey toward sustenance and shelter from
the sun. We straggled into the
restaurant looking so pathetically hot and bedraggled that heads turned to
stare. The man behind the counter wasn’t
sure whether to seat us or offer us a handout.
I’m fairly certain people were talking about us, but we hardly
cared.
Cooled and
fed, we returned to our hotel for showers and rest. Once the sun set the kids enjoyed the pool,
and we joined them in the lazy river. It
was still 107 degrees at 9:00, so the cool water was a welcome change. At 10:00 the pool guys were ready to close up
shop, and we returned to our room wondering why in the world anyone lives in
Tucson in June.
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