Regardless of what brochures and travel ads say, winter mornings here have a desert chill that can rattle your bones. I did a little jig to stay warm.
I was at the new visitors center at the western unit of Saguaro National Park, which on Oct. 21 was designated as the nation’s 52nd national park. (Two other national monuments-California’s Death Valley and Joshua Tree-have since been similarly elevated.)
The single-level visitors center is built in Southwest adobe style, blending unobtrusively with its desert background. The new facility has 50 regular parking spaces and 10 oversized spaces for large vans and buses. When I visited shortly before the center’s Dec. 26th opening, landscaping was still under way, as towering saguaros were being moved about like so many giant chess pieces.
The west unit park rangers were working out of a large trailer where a constant string of visitors came to pick up park literature, video films, books, maps and souvenirs.
For 61 years, the Saguaro National Monument-two sprawling sections of the Sonoran Desert east and west of Tucson, 30 miles apart-preserved a corner of virgin desert land where the saguaro-that lofty, candelabra-shaped monarch of the desert-remained an attraction for millions of visitors.
With the designation as a national park by congress comes authorization for massive expansion. Congress already has approved $6 million for expansion of the park’s east unit. Estimates of the cost of the expansion of the west unit range from $5 million to $10 million, though financing has not yet been approved. The size of the park will increase from almost 83,000 acres to 100,000 acres.
The park’s annual visitor count, now at 700,000 a year, is expected to double with the publicity and prestige of becoming a national park.
While park expansion will protect additional desert land from the developers’ bulldozers, not everyone is pleased. Local environmentalists complain that the construction of park restaurants, gift shops and perhaps even a hotel to accommodate foot-weary visitors is inevitable, destroying the pristine wilderness.
Designated driving loops at both units of Saguaro National Park offer a close-up look at the towering plants. There also are hiking trails, riding trails and a special 3-mile stretch that has been set aside for trail bikes.
The desert wilderness area was established in 1933. The older, larger (about 62,000 acres) and more popular of the two sections is the east portion, located in the Rincon Mountain District. At that unit’s visitors center are dioramas and other exhibits relating the history of the park. Announcements of special lectures, slide shows and ranger-guided trail walks are posted on the bulletin board. The smaller west unit, which was added in the 1960s, contained about 21,000 acres in the Tucson Mountain District before its recent expansion.
Saguaros can be seen almost everywhere in southern Arizona, but nowhere in such profusion as around this city of 400,000 people. Long the symbol of the Southwest desert, no Tucson travel ad is complete without a saguaro, nor is any Hollywood Western.
On the evolutionary scale, saguaros are considered relative newcomers, dating back only 1 million to 3 million years, but experts are concerned about the plant’s decreasing numbers recently. Old age may be the main culprit. Many of the plants are 300 years old.
But other factors are at work. Urban development has caused much of the Great Sonoran Desert to shrink under encroaching blacktop, and nighttime poachers steal many native cactus plants for sale in nearby California, where a good-sized saguaro may fetch several thousand dollars. An even more serious threat to the saguaro is the dwindling coyote population. Without the predator coyote, proliferating rabbits have been free to nibble away at the base of young saguaros, hindering the development of the slow-growing plants.
The largest of 2,000 known species of cactuses, the saguaro grows so slowly that a 10-year-old plant is only about 1-inch tall. After that, they grow at a rate of about 1 foot every 15 years. Saguaros begin to sprout arms at between 7 and 9 feet. A veritable storage tank, the saguaro is capable of pumping up and holding enough water from one rainfall to last four years. Its shallow root system often extends more than 65 feet in all directions, giving balance to the towering plant and enabling it to take advantage of the scant desert rains.
Survival is the first commandment of all living things. Plants-even blades of grass-stand far apart on the desert floor so their roots will not compete for water.
Study the saguaro up close and you’ll find it’s home to many small desert animals and birds. The red-capped, zebra-backed Gila woodpecker can make a nesting hole in the self-healing saguaro’s pulpy interior in a matter of days. Many raise two or three broods a year and often make a new hole for each brood. The woodpecker’s abandoned homes frequently house other birds that are unable to peck holes of their own. Within its dry sierras, canyons and mesas, Saguaro National Park contains 27 varieties of cactus and a wide assortment of flora, wildlife and birdlife within a total of six different climate zones.
The Southwest desert, arid and seemingly untamable, was long considered a scourge of man. But now more and more people see in its raw, awesome beauty the last vestige of America’s wilderness.
Many of the saguaros-some 50 to 60 feet high-have stood tall since Spanish explorer Francisco Coronado first visited the area in 1540.
The Papago and Pima Indians, who call themselves Tohono O’odham (Desert People), built their culture around the saguaro. They still use the long, strong ribs of the plant skeleton for building material and fuel. Jam is made from its rich, sugary fruit.
SAGUARO NATIONAL PARK DETAILS
Getting There: Following the Old Spanish Trail at East Broadway, the park’s east unit is about 15 miles from downtown Tucson. The west unit is also about 15 miles from downtown, 2 miles beyond the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum off Kinney Road. No scheduled tours service the park, but Gray Line (602-622-8811) drives through the west unit on its regular Old Tucson Studio and Arizona-Sonora Desert Museums local tours. All State Vehicles (602-325-5588) offers customized excursions by limo, van or bus for various-sized groups from $30-$56 per hour.
Tucson is awash with car-rental agencies, almost all of which are represented at the Tucson International Airport, including Avis (602-746-3278), Budget (602-889-8800), Hertz (602-294-7616), Alamo (800-327-9633) and National (602-888-8811).
The basics: The park is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Admission to the east unit is $4 per vehicle or $2 for those who walk or bike in. Admission to the west unit is free. Stop at either visitors center for self-guiding brochures.
Where to stay: Tucson offers a range of accommodations. A sampling (rates are per room for one or two adults unless otherwise noted):
– Sheraton El Conquistador, 10000 N. Oracle Rd. (800-325-3535). $170-$200; suites $240; children under 18 stay free in parents’ room.
– Tanque Verde Guest Ranch, Route 8 (602-296-6275). $225-$360; includes all meals and horseback riding.
– Westin’s La Paloma, 3800 E. Sunrise (602-742-6000). $205-300; suites $535-$1,810. Rates are for January-May; lower rates rest of the year.
– Loews Ventana Canyon Resort, 7000 N. Resort Drive (602-299-2020). $200-$230; suites $420-$1,260. Rates are for mid-January through mid-May; lower rates rest of the year.
– Canyon Ranch Spa. 8600 E. Rockcliff Rd. (602-749-9000). $483 single; $389 per person, double occupancy; includes use of all facilities, meals, exercise classes, airport transfers, taxes and gratuities.
– Casa Tierra Bed and Breakfast. 11155 W. Calle Pima (602-578-3058). Only minutes from the Saguaro National Park’s west unit. $65-$75, including full breakfast.
– Copper Bell Bed and Breakfast, 25 N. Westmoreland Ave. (602-629-9229). $65, including full breakfast.
Information: Contact: Superintendent, Saguaro National Park, 3693 S. Old Spanish Trail, Tucson, Ariz. 85730-5699 (602-296-8576).
