Saguaro
April 2024 | Park 30
In April 2024, I attended a conference in Las Vegas followed by a conference in Phoenix the following week. Rather than flying back to Denver in-between, I flew from LV to Phoenix, met up with J there, we rented a car, and drove south to spend three days exploring the Tucson area and Saguaro National Park. It felt like the perfect way to break up a long work trip.
Tucson is a cute town and is filled with childhood memories for J from when the Colorado Rockies used to hold spring training at Hi Corbett Field. It is also situated roughly 20 minutes from the West section of the national park. On our first entrance to the park, we saw a rattlesnake and desert salamander living their best lives, prickly pear cacti with orange and pink blossoms, and majestic saguaros dotted liberally across the rocky hills and valleys. Saguaros, an iconic symbol of the American Southwest, are endemic to the Sonoran Desert. We were lucky enough to visit just as many of the plants and cacti were beginning to flower — which wreaks havoc if you have allergies (sorry, J) but is also spectacular: delicate blooms punctuating the desert landscape with vibrance and color. Life flourishes, even in what felt to me like a harsh ecosystem.
Some of my favorite memories were seeing the dozens of humans who made their way to Gates Pass to be awed by nature’s oldest spectacles, the sunset. Moments like these give me a shot of hope that we still have the ability, as a species, to slow down and savor a sky awash in colors, that we haven’t been wholly corrupted by little screens, and that perhaps we still have space within us to be profoundly moved by beauty.
The incredible thing about this particular kind of beauty is that it grounds me in the natural rhythms of the Earth: where diversity is not just celebrated but is necessary, where “ecosystem” isn’t just a fancy word but refers to a real system of interconnectedness that is mandatory for the continuation of life, and where kinship and collaboration and mutual aid are so often the path to survival.
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” —Mary Oliver
Pictured below:
Desert View Trail in Saguaro National Park (West).
Sunset from Gates Pass Trailhead.
Long hike into Sabino Canyon, which is not within the NP boundaries, but was another spot J used to visit as a child.
