A Day in Saguaro National Park - Rincon Mountain District

Saguaro National Park, in Tucson, Arizona, consists of two sections: The Rincon Mountain District and the Tucson Mountain District.  The city of Tucson splits the park in half so the Rincon Mountain District is also known as the East sector and the Tucson Mountain District is known as the West sector.

View in Saguaro National Park

In 1933, President Herbert Hoover proclaimed land east of Tucson to be a National Monument.  The proclamation stated the area was “…of outstanding scientific interest because of the exceptional growth thereon of various species of cacti, including the so-called giant cactus…”*  In 1961, President John F. Kennedy enlarged the Saguaro National Monument by adding a region west of the city to it.  Then, in 1994, an act of Congress transformed it into Saguaro National Park.
 
I visited the Rincon Mountain District on Martin Luther King Day, one of the days where entrance fees to all the U.S. national parks are waived.  (The other days in 2025 are April 19, June 19, August 4, September 27, and November 11).  It was my first time visiting the East sector and I spent several hours there.

Cactus waving "hello"

I headed first to the Cactus Forest Loop, a one-way drive of about eight miles that takes you through the park and lets you see saguaros and other plant and animal life along the way.  Many turnouts allow you to park and go on short walks or take in the view.
 
One such turnout is for the Desert Ecology Trail.  If you have mobility-challenged people or young children in your group, this trail is paved and only a quarter-mile long.  It’s a short loop, with several informational plaques that give a great overview of what can be seen in the Rincon Mountain District.

Along the Desert Ecology Trail

Continuing my drive, I eventually arrived at the Loma Verde trailhead, my destination.  After parking, I crossed a dry wash and then for the next 4 hours, hiked on the Squeeze Pen Trail, detoured onto the Carillo Trail before turning around, and took the Pink Hill Trail back to the Loma Verde Trail.

Trail markers

Along the way, I saw numerous stands of saguaros of all sizes and shapes, including a rare cristate, or crested, saguaro.  Saguaros can live up to 200 years.  They’re a protected species in Arizona and it is a felony to dig them up or cut them down without a permit.  A 2020 census of saguaros in the park revealed that the population is increasing; however, the cacti are experiencing negative effects due to the on-going drought in the Southwest and higher temperatures caused by climate change.

Crested saguaro along the Loma Verde Trail

The Tohono O’odham people have lived in the Sonoran Desert for thousands of years and in their language, ha:sañ is the word for saguaro.  The fruit of the cactus was an integral part of their diet and harvesting the fruit occurred before the monsoon rains.  Special programs at the park teach visitors about traditional saguaro harvest customs.

Info about harvesting saguaro fruit

The Visitor Center has driving and hiking maps available, as well as books, souvenirs, and other items whose purchase supports the National Parks.  In addition, there’s an exhibition about the park with general information that may be helpful before you enter the park itself.
 
Outside, to the left of the Visitor Center, there’s a small garden with many cactus varieties; it’s worth a look because saguaros are not the only cacti in the park.  On the other side of the visitor center, a pollinator garden presents information about animals that pollinate plants in the park.

Sign about the Pollinator Garden

I greatly enjoyed my first visit to Saguaro National Park East.  Although it took over an hour to get there, it won’t be the last time I go there.  You can see more photos from my day in the park on my Instagram.
 
* All facts about saguaros and the park are from the Saguaro National Park website.

Rewilding a Golf Course in Arizona

Arizona has more than 300 golf courses and its mild winter weather makes it a popular destination for golfers.  But operating golf courses is expensive.  What happens when they can no longer be properly cared for by municipal or private owners, in Arizona and elsewhere?  Rewilding is one answer.
 
In most cases, the land is sold to developers.  The golf course owners get some money back and after the developers build homes or commercial buildings, they can get a good return on their investment.

View of Vistoso Trails Nature Preserve; photo by S.L. Schwartz

Rewilding means letting the land slowly return to its natural state, to what it looked like before it was turned into a golf course.  It’s not as common as selling a golf course to developers who then build homes or commercial structures on the land but rewilding is gaining in popularity.  Both CNN and The New York Times have written about this.

One of the paths in the nature preserve; photo by S.L. Schwartz

The main impediment to rewilding is the cost.  Someone, or some entity, has to purchase the land and then have enough money to remove any human-made structures that no longer make sense there, return waterways to their natural free-flowing states, and plant native trees and flora, if needed and desired.  Typically, non-profit conservation organizations buy the golf courses and then do the work to rewild it.

 

One such place where this happened is the former Rancho Vistoso Golf Course located about 20 miles north of downtown Tucson in Oro Valley.  Built in 1995 and open to the public, the golf course closed in 2018 as a result of financial problems.

Reminder the area used to be a golf course; photo by S.L. Schwartz

Developers wanted to buy it but nearby homeowners objected.  They formed a non-profit organization in 2019 and together with The Conservation Fund, bought the golf course in 2022.  Then they donated it to the Town of Oro Valley.

Renamed Vistoso Trails Nature Preserve, a plan to rewild the golf course was designed and is in the process of being implemented.  Walkers and cyclists share the concrete paths that meander for six miles throughout the former golf course. Tunnels go under area roads so you can avoid car traffic.

Tunnel underpass; photo by S.L. Schwartz

My walk there today was very pleasant.  There is a large parking lot at the trailhead and two pathways to choose from when starting out.  Over the course of two and a half hours, I encountered many other walkers and a few cyclists. 

 

You can’t really get lost because you’re walking on paved trails, which loop around the 202-acre nature preserve.  I saw 4-5 different bird species, several types of cactus, lots of mesquite trees, grasses and a few flowers, and 1 lizard but no large animals, probably because it was mid to late morning when I was there.

Purple prickly pear cactus; photo by S.L. Schwartz

The rewilding of Vistoso Trails Nature Preserve is not yet finished.  There are plans to create a desert garden in the pond that was part of the golf course.

View of the drained pond and old pipes; photo by S.L. Schwartz

It will be interesting to see what the land looks like months and years from now and since I did not see the area where the ancient petroglyphs are, I have another reason to go for more walks there in the future.

Kinishba -- An Ancestral Pueblo Site

About an hour south of Show Low and five miles west of Fort Apache Historic Park in northern Arizona, an unpaved dirt road leads to Kinishba Ruins.  It’s a small site that once was home to Ancestral Pueblo people.

Entrance to Kinishba Ruins

The entrance fee to Fort Apache includes admittance to Kinishba.  At the Nohwiké Bágowa Museum, you can buy a small guidebook about the site.  I highly recommend purchasing it because there is no description at Kinishba of what you’re looking at.  But there are numbered posts that correspond to explanations in the guidebook about the buildings and spaces at the Kinishba; without the guidebook, I wouldn’t have known what I was looking at.

One of the buildings at Kinishba

Occupied from sometime in the 9th century to a time period in the 15th century, the ruins consist of several buildings of dry stone construction.  Some buildings still have walls but others just show foundations that are a few feet high.  There are also a couple of plazas – small, squarish sections of land but it wasn’t obvious what those spaces were until I read about them in the guidebook.
 
At its height in the 14th century, as many as 800 people might have inhabited Kinishba.  The ruins are situated on a windswept plain, high above a river that ran along the edge of the settlement.  Kinishba was an agricultural village and evidence of pottery, jewelry, and artifacts have been found there.

View to the west of the river down below and mountains on the other side

In the 1930s, an archaeologist named Byron Cummings supervised the excavation of Kinishba by his students from the University of Arizona and members of the White Mountain Apache Tribe.  Cummings also constructed some buildings near the ruins; one served as a museum but it closed in 1952.  These buildings are now in a state of disrepair.

Buildings built by UofA Dean Cummings to simulate the actual Kinishba ruins

When I visited last November, for most of the time I was the only person at Kinishba.  Two other people arrived at one point but they didn’t stay long, perhaps because they didn’t have the guidebook to tell them about the place.

View of interior of one of the buildings at Kinishba

I tried to imagine living there a thousand years ago but had a hard time visualizing what it must have been like when Kinishba was a vibrant community filled with people.  However, it is well worth the time to seek it out and I very much enjoyed the hour I spent at Kinishba.

Fort Apache -- The Army Fort

Located on the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s land, Fort Apache was a U.S. Army fort in the 19th century and is now a National Historic Landmark.  I spent a day there last November, learning about Apache history, about the fort and its work, and what happened after the Army left.  The site looks nothing like the fort in the 1948 movie called Fort Apache, which I wrote about in another post.

Banner in the Arrowhead Cafe

 
Fort Apache is about five miles south of Whiteriver, just off Highway 73, in Navajo County, Arizona.  After paying the entrance fee which, at the time of my visit, was $10.00, you’ll get a map of the site which you can use to orient yourself.  However, I recommend buying the Fort Apache Walking Tour Guide because that contains a lot of background information.

Sign at entrance to Fort Apache Historic Park

To the left of the entrance, in the same building, is the Nohwiké Bágowa Museum.  Translated as House of Our Footprints, it provides an excellent introduction to Apache history and culture. You’ll definitely want to spend some time here to get an idea of how the Ndee people, the White Mountain Apache word for themselves, lived before, during, and after the Army occupied the place.
 
A well-stocked gift shop is also in the museum.  I had read online that everything sent from the post office here was stamped with a Fort Apache postmark, which I thought would be fun to have as a souvenir.  Another gift shop, with different items, is located in another building.

U.S. Post Office at Fort Apache

Fort Apache was originally called Camp Ord and was founded in 1870.  General George Crook enlisted the cooperation of local Apaches as scouts who helped the Army in their wars against other Indigenous people.  One of the buildings on the site has an exhibit with detailed information about why the White Mountain Apache people aided Crook in the Apache Wars in the second half of the 19th century.  There were economic, political, and other reasons but the exhibit also makes clear that the presence of the Army also completely changed the Apache people’s traditional way of life.  One very interesting fact is that 12 Apache scouts received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1872.

View of one area of Fort Apache

In 1922, the Army vacated Fort Apache.  The next year, an Indian boarding school was established on the fort’s grounds.  Named the Theodore Roosevelt School, today it’s a middle school for local children.

Another view of Fort Apache

Although Fort Apache isn’t large and following the walking tour won’t take long, if you stop to read all the information plaques, enter the buildings that are open to the public, eat in the Arrowhead café, browse the gift shops, take photos, and just soak up the atmosphere, you can easily spend several hours there, as I did.  Anyone who is interested in the Old West, Arizona history, Indigenous culture and history, and Army life will enjoy visiting Fort Apache Historic Park.

Fort Apache - 1948 Movie

Opening with shots of a stagecoach traveling through Monument Valley, viewers soon find out that Colonel Owen Thursday, one of the passengers, is on his way to assume command of Fort Apache.  It’s clear that he does not look forward to his new posting but the young woman accompanying him is pleased because she was not able to be with him while he was in Europe and can be now.  At a stage stop, they learn that news of his arrival has not yet reached the fort.  This is the first of many foreshadowing scenes in Fort Apache, an enjoyable if somewhat predictable film.
 
Henry Fonda plays Owen Thursday in this 1948 movie directed by John Ford.  Shirley Temple is his daughter Philadelphia, the young lady traveling with him in the stagecoach.  Glimpses of her persona as a child star percolate through her performance in Fort Apache as a headstrong woman unused to life in the West but for the most part, she is convincing as the daughter of an Army colonel.  John Wayne is a supporting character, Captain York, who repeatedly clashes with Colonel Thursday. York is the commanding officer of Sergeant O’Rourke, played by John Agar, who becomes Philadelphia’s love interest and was her husband in real life.
 
At one point Thursday states, “I’m not a martinet but I do want to take pride in my command.”  Which is emblematic since he says that as he dresses down his senior officers for not wearing their uniforms properly.  There are several conflicts between various groups of men in Fort Apache, especially between Thursday and York, and especially over how to handle the Apaches who have left the reservation they were forced onto.
 
The women at the fort – the wives of the soldiers stationed there and the Spanish-speaking servants – all seem to get along with each other, though.  Sprinkled throughout Fort Apache are several domestic scenes showing what their life was like at a frontier fort; at least, what it was like according to John Ford.
 
The plot of Fort Apache is both a “fish out of water” story and the story of one man’s hubris.  But the quality of acting elevates this 128-minute movie and makes it worth watching.  Colonel Thursday, who thinks he knows more than the seasoned soldiers who have been stationed at the fort far longer than him and who have dealt with the Apaches many times, forces the troops to engage in activities and battles the others know are foolhardy.
 
Just before the end, there’s a scene with journalists that reminded me of another John Ford movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, even though that film was shot many years later.  It made me wonder if the scene in Fort Apache was the inspiration for the famous quote from that movie.