Thenaturalmedic Adventures
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Thenaturalmedic Adventures
Desert Giants: A Birthday Hike Through Saguaro National Park
Note: Audio Only, See YouTube for Video Version
Craig the Natural Medic takes us on a meaningful journey through Saguaro National Park in Arizona as he celebrates his 50th birthday. The magnificent saguaros standing sentinel throughout the park create a stunning backdrop while showcasing the resilience of desert ecosystems that once faced predictions of disappearing completely by the 1990s.
• Exploration of Saguaro National Park's East District near Tucson on April 4, 2025
• Discovery of "nurse trees" that protect young saguaros until they're established enough to survive on their own
• Historical insights about the park's establishment in 1935 and the freeze that nearly devastated the saguaro population
• Hiking the 3.8-mile Loma Verde Trail loop featuring remnants of early 1900s copper mining history
• Completion of the challenging Tanque Verde Ridge Trail offering spectacular views of Tucson and the surrounding mountains
• Observation of unique saguaro formations, including "octopus" shaped cacti and crown-like growth patterns
• Information about the park's six different life zones spanning from desert scrub to mountain forests
• Discussion about the impact of Tucson's rapid urban expansion approaching the park boundaries
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to my channel for more videos like this. Leave your questions and comments below, and I'll see you on the trail!
Hi there, craig the Natural Medic. I am filming today on my 50th birthday, april 4th 2025. And I'm in Saguaro National Park in the East District, which is near Tucson, arizona. Let's take a look at what we're seeing out here. We're seeing all these beautiful saguaros they are so ginormous and magnificent and doing the Cactus Forest Drive but it's an eight mile round-trip drive one way and doing some trails off of that. Please join me as I celebrate my 50th birthday here in Saguaro National Park.
Speaker 1:Interestingly, you can see on this panel here in 1935, this monument was set aside and now it's a national park. Tons of Saguaro's out here. In 1960, you had about half as many. Not long after the park was established, there was a freeze that killed a bunch of them. They realized in 1962 that freezing temperatures for more than 20 hours could kill saguaros, so they did predict that the doom would be and there would be no saguaros in the 1990s. But they have proved us wrong and they are still here. Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1:When I was in the visitor center definitely saw some expansion of the city of tucson, which is stretched out before us here. They're estimating by 2040, which is not that far away, it's 20, 25 now Pima County will have one and a half million residents. It's rapidly growing, so they're trying to create a buffer. You have this low density neighborhood in front of us here. That is on the edge of the city, but this could happen where you have higher density, just like in the picture here coming towards us. There is the city of Tucson, in the valley with the big mountains behind it, and then saguaro national park east side, which I'm in. The city has grown up towards it. Hey, if you're enjoying this video, make sure to give it a good old thumbs up. That gets it out to more people, so that more people can see it here on YouTube, and I appreciate it very much. Now back to the video.
Speaker 1:I took a quick little dive onto the desert ecology trail and, interesting thing here, the saguaro. In order to get established they have to have what they call nurse trees. So if you look here there's a young saguaro. It's only about three feet tall and the tree to its left is a mesquite tree. Those nurse trees provide shelter from the heavy rains, from cold temperatures, from sunburn. The baby saguaros look like this. They're like as big as the tip of your finger, but they will grow and become big, tall guys like these ones that are around here, and in order to do that they must have a nurse to get them off the ground.
Speaker 1:Okay, for our next trick, we're going to do the Loma Verde or, starting at the Loma Verde trailhead the volunteer lady recommended as one of the trails to do today Loma Verde over to Pink Hill and then around Squeeze Pin and back out. It makes it like a 3.8 mile loop and we did get a little pin. It's this Saguaro National Park Hiking for Health pin. If you do three miles or more in the park you get to have that, and we're going to go down this trail. It's 0.1 to Mesquite, 0.2 to Squeeze Pin, 0.3 Monument Wash, 0.6 Loma Verde Mine Site and 1.2 to the Pink Hill, so it'll take about two hours to do. Let's get to it. Okay, check this guy out. This one looks like an octopus. You have bunches of arms coming out from it and they say it takes 50 to 75 years for a saguaro to grow its first arm, and today's my 50th birthday, so I guess I'm just now growing my first arm.
Speaker 1:Copper mining was an economic adventure during the 1880s in Arizona. The mounds and depressions that I'm going to show you in just a second are remains of a 350 feet shaft dug by the Loma Verde Copper Company in 1901. Although they were able to get ore that was 16% copper out, they were soon able to have it enclosed because 16% copper out they were soon able to. They were soon having to close because it just wasn't profitable. Here's the little shaft area over here and you can walk over there. I'm going to walk over there and check it out. You can see down here at my feet there's some green rocks. Those would be copper ore.
Speaker 1:I did ask the volunteers what the average age of the saguaro out here is and they said 175 years. It takes 50 to 75 years for them to start growing arms, depending on climatic conditions. What's interesting is these holes they're hollowed out by Gila woodpeckers and then over time they abandon them and other species move in super crazy. Huh, this one is one that the volunteer was telling us about for hiking this trail. I believe they call it a crown. It looks like it's got broccoli head, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1:Most of these are grounded. We do have one right here next to us, a smaller one that is got some little sprouts on the top of it pretty wild. This one looks like a face, pretty crazy. It's almost he's saying hello, I'm a saguaro. I'm just hanging out here in the sonoran desert. Saguaro, I'm just hanging out here in the Sonoran desert having a good time. We just came from over here, which was the pink came from this way and we go to the left back to Loma Verde trailhead. We're about halfway done, not too bad, it's pretty easy. If you look out here, look at this beautiful view of the saguaros and the mountains in the distance. That's a Santa Catalina, I believe, and the one getting rained on right now is Mount Lemmon, spelled with two M's After, I think after a person, and I can't remember exactly what the person was named for.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about on this panel, desert Florida Mountain Peak. Obviously, on the desert floor we have cactus and scrub brush, but way over there is the Rincon Mountains or Rincon Mountains in the park as a whole. I think they're talking about both sections, the west and the east. In the park you have a diversity of habitats, six different life zones. You have desert scrub, everything in between, up to mountain forests which have gray foxes, black bears, etc. This other panel at the site is talking about fire and how it's a natural event. All the fires that are threatening the mountain forest here, they fight those. And even though it's very rare, there is a occasion where the cactus can be exposed to here, they fight those. And even though it's very rare, there is an occasion where the cactus can be exposed to fire. They're not very well fire adapted.
Speaker 1:This is called the Javelina rocks after the Javelinas, which are not pigs but actually collared peccaries, and they're closely related to rodents. This is what the rocks look like and they're supposed to resemble the Javelinas. So this is what the rocks look like. They're supposed to resemble the javelinas which are found here in the desert, but I didn't see any today. For the last major hike of the day, I'm going to do the Tanque Verde, or is it Tanque Verde, which I think means the green tank? Again, my Spanish should not be trusted, but if you look here, it does show this ridge line, starting at the Javelina picnic area, which is past the Javelina rocks, going up. If you take the whole thing, it goes all the way up to Tango Verde Peak, which is the highest peak on this ridge line, but it continues on to Cowhead Saddle and then Cowhead Saddle goes to Helen's Dome, manning, camp, arizona Trail, all that kind of stuff. Pretty good, climbing here.
Speaker 1:We're going to try to go and see how far we can get. The volunteer at the park visitor center said that going up there on this ridgeline which is located here, probably go to maybe where that little white spot is on top of the ridge Might go a little further just to get a good view of what we can see, depending on water etc. But if you go to this one over here you can definitely see how many trails there are in the park. This part of the park over here, this little sliver, I would say maybe a tenth of the park so we can zoom in. A tenth of the park and maybe I'll see it very well is quote unquote developed. The rest of the park, which is that darker green, is wilderness area and undeveloped, so it's just trails that go all across that area, plus on three sides the southern part of the little tail end of the deal, and then over here you have the Coronado National Forest, so it extends out that area. In the park itself there's almost 200 miles of trail and that's pretty amazing Right now at the beginning of April, perfect time. Let's go do it.
Speaker 1:We climbed up here on the trail and you can see a beautiful view of the Catalinas straight ahead. The city of Tucson, of course, is below and I'm surprised that the Saguaro's being this many up high, I would think it would be colder. According to my watch, at about a thousand feet of climbing, it seems like it would be enough to deter the saguaros from growing up this high because it would be colder, more chance of freezing, etc. Straight ahead in the clouds. Over there is Mount Lemmon. It's been an awesome day here at Saguaro National Park on the east side district.
Speaker 1:I really enjoyed my stay. This trail keeps going on. There's some really cool looking saguaros over there. I might check out before I walk down. There's lots of ocotillo around me. The gentleman we met earlier said the Ocotillo is an indicator of caves because they like to grow on limestone. He is the resident 82 year old naturalist around here. It could indicate the presence of caves.
Speaker 1:Hiked about two miles up here, took about an hour. Nice, beautiful day Now gonna hike back down. We got one more stop before we end the day here in beautiful Saguaro National Park. Made it back safely to the Tango Verde trailhead, did about two miles in two miles back, probably up on one of those ridges up there. Nice hike. Someday I would love to come back and do a longer hike, maybe an overnight or a couple nights, for this visit to the Saguaro National Park east side.
Speaker 1:You have to cope with change. The climate forecast is going to be hotter and drier. In thousands of years they have adapted to harsh conditions here and thrived. You wouldn't have all these saguaros here in one place if they weren't, if there wasn't great conditions for them to survive. You have the coyote, you have the agave, you have the gila monster. All of these animals and plants have ways that they can adapt and survive in the desert. I hope you enjoyed your trip today to Saguaro National Park on the east side. I had a great 50th birthday spending it here. I've got to go get something to eat. Until next time, I would love for you to subscribe to the channel to get more videos like this. If you have questions or comments, please leave those below, and until next time I'll see you on the trail. Bye-bye.
