Saguaro National Park: Guided Sunrise Hike

Friday morning, November 11, 2022, Sean and I were up early. We planned to spend the day exploring the eastern side of Saguaro National Park, the Rincon Mountain District, beginning with a Ranger-led sunrise hike to greet the dawn in the Sonoran Desert. Later we would go on a hike up Tanque Verde Ridge, and then wander around in the Saguaro Forest.

But first, sunrise.

Our alarms went off at 5:30am so that we could be driving to the trailhead by 6:30am. We were a little rushed, so we didn’t have a chance to get coffee. Blerg. Soon we were traveling east from the near-downtown neighborhood where the University of Arizona campus is located past out-lying neighborhoods and then a smattering of suburbs before everything got really rural really fast and we reached what was basically the end of the road. From a four-lane divided thoroughfare to dirt in less than thirty minutes.

We arrived at the Broadway Trailhead just before 7am. There were several other cars parked there, but only two other folks waiting for the hike, a couple from Silver City, New Mexico. Ranger Jared walked up, introduced himself, and asked where we were all from. He was originally from Missouri.

It was cold. We began to walk.

Already the Santa Catalina Mountains to the northwest were bathed in morning light. But we were still in the shadow of the Rincon Mountains.

To orient us, Ranger Jared explained that the two units of the Park are very different both geologically and ecologically. The Rincon Mountains comprise one of the largest granite uplifts on the planet. They are weathered like the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Although not as high as the Santa Catalinas, they also function as a Sky Island, with species found at higher elevations that usually appear much farther to the north.

The Tucson Mountains, by contrast, are a chaos of different types of rock. But there are actually more Saguaros on the Tucson Mountains side, which we had explored the previous day.

The Rincon Mountain District and its then-immense Saguaro Forest was the land originally protected in 1933 by the establishment of Saguaro National Monument. The Tucson Mountain District wasn’t added until the 1960s under legendary Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall, who served in both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

The impetus for adding a unit to the Park was that the Saguaros on the east side were in trouble. Reacting to an outbreak of Saguaro black ooze, which at the time was thought to be viral, Park scientists burned portions of the forest to stop its spread. Combine decades of public trampling with accidental mismanagement and the Saguaro forests of the Rincon Mountain District were in bad shape.

Happily, a better understanding of the Sonoran Desert as a complete ecosystem informed more recent Park management, and the Saguaro forests in the Rincon foothills are in much better ecological health today.

In fact, in November 2022 the region had had two unusually wet seasons after forty years of drought. Ranger Jared explained that he had never seen the Park so grassy. In fact, the northern Sonoran Desert gets slightly too much average rain per year—twelve inches—to count as a true desert. Technically it is a grassland. “But Sonoran Grassland doesn’t sound as romantic,” remarked Ranger Jared.

Seeing how grassy the desert was, particularly when so much of our 21st century impression of the West is a landscape denuded by chronic overgrazing, was a revelation.

I asked Ranger Jared if some of the grasses we were seeing were Little Bluestem, and he said he wasn’t sure because grass growth to this extent had been so rare he was largely unfamiliar with the species. I mentioned that we had seen Little Bluestem at Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and that opened up the opportunity for Ranger Jared to paint a grand picture.

The Chihuahuan Desert to the east and the Sonoran Desert we were currently standing in are ultimately bounded by the Gulf of Mexico to the east and the Gulf of California and Pacific Ocean to the west. Although each desert has indicator species, like the Saguaro itself, there are not hard boundaries between them in many places.

Both deserts are punctuated by Sky Islands—like the Rincons and the Guadalupes—as the Basin and Range Province continues across the US/Mexico border. These create microhabitats, but so too does the mixture of the land, its general topography, and its relationship with the two gulfs (and the Pacific beyond on the western side).

The moisture from the gulfs creates weather patterns and enough moisture to allow both deserts to support a huge array of flora and fauna. These are semi/sub-tropical deserts, unlike their cooler, drier counterparts to the north, the Great Basin and the Mojave.

At 7:32, the sun finally peeked over Mica Mountain and Tanque Verde Ridge. As it did, there was an explosion of birdsong. And, quite close, Coyotes started yipping and howling. It was magical and memorable.

“Should we be scared?” asked the couple from Silver City.

Ranger Jared explained that baby Saguaros need protection, and they will grow beneath a nurse tree (such as the Paloverde above). They achieve this when a bird eats the fruit and seeds of the Saguaro and then shits the seed out while sitting in a Paloverde, a Mesquite, a Creosote, etc. Eventually the long-lived Saguaro may outlive its nurse tree, often by out-competing it for water. They are eighty percent water.

After seven tenths of a mile, we reached Mica View Picnic Area and the Loop Road. This was the guided hike’s turnaround point, but Ranger Jared pointed out that this part of the Park had many miles of intersecting trails allowing for a great variety of walks and hikes. Mica View Picnic Area was just one of the hubs for trailheads.

It warmed up quickly now that the sun was on us. And the walk back was very pleasant.

Ranger Jared pointed out various species as we walked along.

Now that we had been clued into the nurse tree symbiosis, we saw it everywhere we looked.

I asked Ranger Jared for tips on seeing Javelinas. He said to look for prints, keep an eye out in washes, and that we’d smell them before we see them.

At 8:30, we thanked Ranger Jared for a splendid hike with a round of applause. He invited all of us back to the Visitor Center for more questions and conversation once it opened at 9am. And we said goodbye.

As we drove back to The Graduate, we started listening Case 63, a gripping podcast of dystopian fiction starring Julianne Moore and Oscar Isaac. For the next few days, we would keep listening to it every time we were in the car, and it is connected in my mind to the landscapes between downtown Tucson and the Park units.

Back at The Graduate, we got coffee and breakfast sandwiches and breakfast burritos. I caught up on a little email. We prepped for the afternoon back in the Park. We had a look at the rooftop pool.

Then we headed back to the Rincon Mountain District, arriving at its Visitor Center at the start of its Loop Road at 12:40pm.

I sent this to Juan, because I am a 13 year old sometimes.

The Park film on this side was about science and ecology rather than human culture like the west side.

We headed out onto the undulating Loop Road.

There was an old timey automobile ahead of us for while. It felt appropriate. Sean remarked that everything about the Loop Road felt sort of old timey 1930s National Park.

We stopped at a few turnouts for photos. But it was actually pretty busy that sunny Friday afternoon. So we mostly just kept going along the gentle ups and downs of the road.