Organ Pipe National Monument 2018

For a brief respite from winter this year, I flew down to Tucson, rented a car, and drove a couple hours west to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. It's one of the only pieces of public land I know of in the Southwest with good camping and hiking, and at low enough elevation to be comfortable in December. The campground is just a few miles from the Mexican border.  Typical daytime temperatures were around 20 C (68 F), going down to around 5 C (40 F) at night. Not exactly tropical, but a lot warmer than Wisconsin this time of year. It's very uncrowded, as the crowds don't arrive until after Christmas.

  

I arrived at dusk Tuesday night and found a nice campsite with a shelter. The shelter turned out to be really handy a couple days later.

Campsite, Mexican Mountains

There were several ham radio operating events scheduled for Wednesday, so I set up my 11 meter fishing pole to hold up the antenna and made a few contacts with the small radio I had brought along.

Fishing Pole Antenna Support

The next day, storms moved in from the Pacific, so I made good use of that shelter.

Rainbow

After a wet night, I had a fairly dry day. In the evening, however, some serious thunderstorms appeared, but passed just a few miles south and east of the campsite. Somebody got a serious soaking, but I just got pictures.

Storm in the Desert

  

  

  

When things finally cleared up, there was just a tiny crescent of a moon. Surprisingly, my phone took a picture showing the crescent, the rest of the moon illuminated by earthglow, and Saturn, that tiny speck above and to the left of the moon. This being southern Arizona, there naturally was a saguaro cactus in the picture.

Moon, Earthglow, and Saturn

On my hike over to the abandoned mine near the campground, I came upon this gigantic saguaro, probably a good 15 meters tall. When I hiked back to get some pictures, the light wasn't great, but it's still pretty impressive. It looks like the one in the background has had a tough life.

Huge Saguaro

Off a ways to the east are the Ajo Mountains, where there's a nice hiking trail of about 10 km. The scenery there is more interesting than the fairly flat desert terrain near the campground. It's also a bit more work, with a 300 meter climb.

Bull Pasture and Estes Canyon Trail Profiles

Despite the season, the wet weather seems to have brought out a few flowers. On sunny days, I could often hear the quiet buzzing of thousands of bees.

Desert Flowers

The scenery gets more interesting as the trail climbs.

On the Trail to Bull Pasture

Still on the Trail

Bull Pasture

The View to the South

Bull Pasture Coordinates

The trail ends overlooking Bull Pasture.  The route back follows the same trail to a junction, then makes a loop by way of Estes Canyon. A very nice hike. I saw no one else on the trail, despite beautiful weather.


 That evening, the sunset was really spectacular, with a great view right from my campsite.

Desert Sunset

  

  

  

  

My last day was another Wednesday, so I set up the radio station one more time. This time I set up a sun shade to make it a little easier to see the displays. There was a bit of a breeze, but the fishing pole stayed up long enough.

Radio Station

Fishing Pole Back Up

With Sun Shade

The last morning, I packed everything up, gave the rest of my stove fuel to some other campers, and drove back to Tucson in plenty of time to catch my 2:45 flight. Back to winter!