We spent Saturday April 24th exploring Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, on the US/Mexico Border. We drove to the border to see what the border crossing looked like and find a great restaurant to eat at. Unfortunately the only food was at the gas station. It was fun to drive the extra 5 miles anyway!
This is the only place in the United States where you can find Organ Pipe Cactus, because it does not grow where there is frost. It also grows in Sonora Mexico (across the border). The Organ Pipes were so fun to see! A Ranger told us our best option for seeing high concentrations of the Organ Pipe was to drive a 21-mile mostly unpaved loop. So that's what we did! The loop took us about 4 hours, because we stopped for lunch and took alot of pictures.
A fun saguaro
We also took a short hike around the backside of a double arch formation, but stopped when the trail turned into climbing straight up the rocks. We sure had beautiful views and wildflowers to see and loved being on a hike in perfect weather together! We want to come back in the winter and do more hiking in this section of the park.
You can barely see the arch that the tallest pipe is pointing to.
After we completed the 21-mile loop, we drove a 5-mile section on the other side of the park. Along the way we saw this rattlesnake sunning on the side of the road. We took this picture from a safe distance away, while in the car. Does anyone know why the snake has black and white skin near the rattles?
View on the 5-mile loop
2 comments:
Those organ pipe cacti are sure neat! I love the last picture with all the cacti off the road
It looks like a beautiful place. I'm glad you had such a great day.
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