Christmas with my family was to be held in Morro Bay this year, and of course, I wanted to hit up some national parks along the way. 

On Friday morning, Felix and I boarded and early plane to Phoenix, AZ. From there, we rented a car and drove down to Tucson. Saguaro National Park has two sections, East and West, and is bisected by the City of Tucson. I heard that most of the attractions are on the West side so for our afternoon, we went to check out the East side. In my research about the park, it seemed to me that the only thing the park had going for it was that there were a lot of big cactuses. That is accurate to what we found, but I was impressed at how big the cactuses were and the shear number of them. We did a scenic drive through the park, and the cactuses did look beautiful sprawled among the hills, especially in the afternoon light. 

I have a National Parks annual pass that grants me access into any National Park or federally owned recreation area, and I LOVE driving up to a fee booth and pulling out my pass. It makes me feel like a VIP. Felix thought we probably wouldn’t have to show the pass for this park, but we DID, and I was excited to use it. 

We did a short walk along an educational trail that told us about the ecology of the desert. I was struck by how huggable the cactuses look. They’re just the right width to wrap your arms around and they look like a person with their arms up, searching for a hug. Felix did give one a hug. 

I learned on the trail that young Saguaro cactuses try to sprout near a nurse tree that provides them some shelter from the elements while they’re young. But when they grow older, their extensive root system fills in and sucks up most of the water from the area, killing their nurse tree. I could never look at a Saguaro the same way, knowing they’re all murderers. 

We stopped at the Javelina Rocks overlook to climb some cool rocks. 

Last we did a short trail that was supposed to take us down to a former homestead. This turned out to be a disappointment because all there was was a plaque saying “This mound of dirt in front of you is all that remains of an adobe home” and there wasn’t even a clear mound of dirt that it was referring too. Felix and I did enjoy looking at all the cactuses and finding ones that looked like stuff. We’d be like “that was has claws,” “that one has a mustache,” “that one looks like a father who has too many kids and they’re climbing all over him.” The Saguaro make a lot of good shapes. 

The sun set and we headed to our hotel. It was dark and along the way we noticed a lot that appeared to be full of airplanes. We drove for blocks and the field of airplanes just went on and on. There were hundreds of them. I looked it up and it turned it out was an airplane graveyard that was indeed full of hundreds of airplanes. I did absolutely no research on what was inside of Tucson (because I only cared about the park) so this was a fun surprise to find. 

The next day we drove to the West side of the park, went to the visitor center, and then did a 2,4 mile hike up and around a canyon. During the hike, we continued playing the game of pointing out cactuses that looked like things. This one wanted to shake my hand:

There were some decent views of the valley where the cactuses appeared to go on and on, but overall this hike wasn’t super interesting. Once you’ve seen a valley of cactuses, you’ve seen it. 

We stopped to get a stacks photo next to a cactus so you (the reader) could get an idea how tall they are.

Afterward we left the park to get lunch and then went to the Sonora Desert Museum, which is right outside the park. The museum was actually more of a zoo and had a ton of animals, both native and not. National parks always have a lot of information about the wildlife but you rarely get to see any animals, so it was nice to be able to see some of the desert animals. We saw javelina (boar-like things), a coyote, a mountain lion, tons of rattle snakes, and big horn sheep. There was one big horn being a showboat who kept standing near the edge of cliff (like I do when I’m trying to freak out my mom). 

Felix was excited to see a Gila monster because he had just bought a hat showing a Gila monster. They’re the only venomous lizard in North America!

The museum also had a bunch of animatronic dinosaurs spread throughout who would move slowly and roar. They were kind of kitschy but fun. 

We spent a couple hours at the museum–it was probably more interesting than the park and I would recommend it. Afterward, we went back into the park to do a scenic drive. We stopped for a short hike to see some petroglyphs, which were fine I guess. I’ve seen plenty of petroglyphs at this point. While hiking, we heard some howling that we assume was from coyotes, so that was cool. We watched the sunset through the saguaros and then headed back to the hotel.

The next day we woke up early to drive to Chiricahua National Monument, which is in southeast Arizona and is two hours from Tucson. From my research, Chiricahua looked like a much more interesting park than Saguaro, and the state has been trying to get it upgraded to a national park for a few years but has been unsuccessful. Approaching from the outside, the park just looks like a bunch of mountains, but once you’re on the inside you can see a ton of hoodoos, which are rock spires formed from the freezing and thawing of water in the cracks of the rocks. They only form in certain areas where it gets cold enough for water to freeze, and this park is higher in elevation than the surrounding desert. 

Note that Chiricahua does not charge an entrance fee, so I didn’t get to show my National Parks pass 😦

In my research I found that if you only have one day in Chiricahua, the best thing to do is a hike called the Big Loop, which is over 8 miles long, and takes you to some of the best spots in the park. 8 miles is a lot longer that I like to hike, but Felix and I were ready for the challenge. 

The first part of the hike is called Echo Canyon and it’s fun because it takes you directly through the hoodoos, including some cave-like areas. The whole time there are also great views of the surrounding hoodoos. 

The hike descends into a canyon at where there are hoodoos around the ridges and forest at the bottom. We hiked through the forest for a while and it was quite cold because of the shade. 

Then we did a lot of upward hiking until we got to a trail called the Heart of Rocks, which is the part I most wanted to see. This loop took us through more hoodoos, with great views, and this area has a bunch of iconic named rocks. 

Pinnacle Balanced Rock

“Duck on a Rock”

Kissing Rocks

Heart of Rocks was a really fun part of the trail and we stopped for lunch there while enjoying great views. You have to hike at least 7 miles to experience this trail (if you do it as an out and back, which I abhor); I chose the 8.5 mile Big Loop so I could see the Heart of Rocks and Echo Canyon. 

After Heart of the Rocks, I lost my excitement and the rest of the trail was a bit of a drag. There was one kind of interesting balanced rock right after Heart of the Rocks, but the views on the second half of the trail were not as spectacular, and at that point we had been amongst the hoodoos for so many hours that they were no longer exciting. There was one point in the trail where we could’ve hiked an additional mile to go to Inspiration Point, which apparently has a great view of a valley of hoodoos, but we were too tired and uninterested. It was a relief to make it back to the parking lot. Overall, I believe we walked 8.5 miles and about 1000 ft of elevation gain in just under 5 hours, which is much faster than we expected. 

After the hike we went to the visitor center and they gave us a free pin for having hiked more than 5 miles. The pin says “Rock the Rhyolite” because Rhyolite is the type of rock the hoodoos are made of. We had enough time to do other things in the park but we’d had enough and headed back to the hotel. 

That was the Arizona leg of our trip. I’ve now been to every national park in Arizona! Stay tuned to hear about the next part of our trip in California which will include Joshua Tree, Morro Bay, and Pinnacles National Park.