Ajo Mountain Drive

Dazzling Spring Days Along... Ajo Mountain Drive

(Above) Starting the later part of March, Ajo Mountain Drive is a riot of color. Willard Clay (Left) In March, a golden carpet of poppies spreads itself along the foot of the Ajo Mountains. David Muench

In spring, starting mid-to-late March, Ajo Mountain Drive displays a variety of colorful living gems. (Right) Desert beauties. Everett Bennett. (Lower right) Delicate flowers and spiny cactus, Willard Clay. (Below) Hedgehog and brittlebush. James Randklev

by Ginger Hutton

My nephew ran ahead of us up the trail, stopping abruptly every few minutes to exclaim, “Look at this one! Look how pretty! Here's another one. It's purple. Look!” He had reason to be excited. Nature was putting on its April production on Ajo Mountain Drive in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and featured players were sprouting century plants, pink-blooming hedgehogs and ocotillo reaching red-plumed fingers to the sky.

Next week the scene would be slightly different, with cholla blossoms bursting colorfully upon the stage set by the craggy beauty of the Ajo Mountains. And a month later visitors would find the saguaro donning creamy yellow-centered blossoms for its turn in the spotlight, while the organ pipe would present armsful of pinkish lavender blossoms in June.

Each month another opening, another show. But nature's most colorful extravaganza was a month earlier in March, when I made my first visit to the monument with my brother.

We drove the 140 miles southwest of Phoenix on U.S. Highway 80 under skies full of clouds that alternately collected to wash the road and separated to provide glimpses of sun-rimmed clouds.

Lush was the array of flowers and foliage provided by the winter ancestors of that day's rain. Swollen saguaros, pregnant with rain water, Stood awkwardly in the midst of the desert's green along the Ajo Mountain Drive. Lavender lupine-lined pathways, yellow-blossomed brittlebush welcomed momentary sunlight, white wildflowers peeped around rocks, orange poppies nodded happily at lizards amidst droves of organ pipe cacti on golden or magenta-flowered mountainsides.

Above it all, the Ajo Mountains towered in majestic marbled beauty, their rich reds, browns and whites freshly deepened by the rain. Ravens, sleek and black, soared in intermittent sunlight, shiny moving accents on the panorama of mountains, valleys, hillsides and flowers.

My brother and I completed the drivejust as the setting sun added more color to the silent landscape.

The day was perfect for our trip, but our timing was off. With frequent stops to watch ravens and drink in flowering beauty, it took us much longer than the usual two hours to drive the monument's 21 miles of winding, dipping dirt road. We had no time to make the 1.7 mile, 1000-foot hike to Bull Pasture, off the mountain drive. It would take us 2 to 3 hours, we were told, depending on our endurance.

So when I returned to Organ Pipe in April with my mother, my son and nephew, we planned to spend the day. Much of March's color had gone. The brittlebush blossoms were looking leggy and tired and the lavender lupine was seldom seen, but my nephew didn't notice. He was 10 years of excitement as we stopped first at the visitors' center to see slide presentations of the 516square-mile park and to pick up brochures giving a guided tour of Ajo Mountain Drive.

We drove across the main highway and north onto the one-way road toward the gothic shapes of the Ajo Mountains.

Lizards scuttled across the road, buzzards swept the sky, orange-winged butterflies visited white wildflowers. Squirrels scurried across the desert and into the hills as a roadrunner scooted down the side of the road, through a wash and onto the branch of a dead cholla, where he posed in tasseled ele-gance as butterflies swarmed about him.

It was difficult to believe that this country, with its profusion of. March flowers and its April promises, was once described by early travelers along the Camino del Diablo, the "Devil's Highway," as dreary and sterile. Plagued with lack of water, the seekers of gold, travelers and refugees from civilization had no time to discover that the desert demands you search out its beauty and find its fruits. No trollop, she, laying out her charms for all to see. Only the person with enough insight to look beyond her prickly, hot-tempered surface can really know her.

The Papago Indians knew what she offered. In prehistoric times, they trudged through the Ajo Mountains in the spring on their way to the Gulf of California to obtain salt. And in June, they gathered the saguaro fruits. Father Eusebio Kino, who baptized Indian children at nearby Sonoita Sonora, and established a mission there in 1701, must have known her beauties, too. And so must have the Spanish explorer Melchior Diaz, who traversed the mountains in 1540, enroute to the Colorado River. His name was given to Diaz Peak and to Diaz Spire which can be seen from Ajo Mountain Drive. My nephew and son found the desert most attractive. Each turn in the trail brought a new surprise a flower behind a rock or cactus, a brightly colored, moss-adorned stone, a glimpse of a bird or animal. At one point, we saw a tiny young saguaro huddled under the sheltering branches of a paloverde tree, the desert's way of protecting its young. Groves of teddybear cholla, named for their short cuddly looks, begged for petting, but the boys wisely steered clear of their thick treacherous spines. Instead, they fed their eyes on Christmas cactus, which bears red fruit in the winter months, and crested organ pipe an unexplained abnormal fan-shaped growth which also occurs on the saguaro and sometimes on the cholla and barrel cactus.

At one turn, an army of organ pipe cacti marched open-armed up a distant hillside and, shortly beyond a shaded picnic area, nature had carved an archway to the heavens. Standing 720 feet above and beyond the drive, the colorful arch was 90 feet wide and 36 feet high. It was formed by wind and the freezing and thawing of water, which over eons left only a frame for the sky. The kids longed to climb to it, but guides had warned that the hike was only for experienced rock scramblers. If we had more time, we could have settled instead for a hike along some of the old trails and washes for a backview of the arch from below. The Ajo Mountains, which gave birth to the arch, were formed by a vast lava Although Ajo Mountain Drive is only 26 miles long, it most often takes an entire day to make the one-way round trip. The scenery is so picturesque, the vistas so magnificent, the roadside so inviting for picnics that drivers dally happily.

flow that spread in layers of dark lava or basalt and light yellow or tan volcanic ash called tuff. They achieved their massive stature later when great forces thrust blocks of the earth's crust upwards.

They dominate the drive and provide the walls of Estes Canyon, which we hiked on our way to Bull Pasture. Shortly after we started up the steep canyon trail, my mother took one of our canteens and found some shade under a paloverde tree. There she settled to await our return while she watched for the area's birds and wildlife: javelina, bighorn sheep, cactus wrens, Gambel's quail, phainopeplas and curved bill thrashers.

Despite the heat and occasionalrockiness of the trail, the kids bounded onward, led by insistent desire to know what was beyond the curves and the cacti and the wildflowers, which obliterated the pathway in some places.

At the first summit, we found a cooling wind and a view of Estes Canyon, where the reds, oranges, whites and greens of the Ajo Mountains provided backdrop for the narrow green treeand shrub-lined valley. The canyon is named for "Old Man Estes," an army scout during the Apache campaigns of the 1860s, who settled near the mouth of the canyon to raise goats and cattle.

We left the summit resting place above Estes Canyon to climb even higher. The wind was strong and cooland wildflowers grew more profusely. The kids ran on ahead to shout and catch returning echoes from the canyon walls, as I rested in the shade of a large porous orange mountain that stuck upward like an irregular band shell. As they ran on farther, I was left alone for a moment with the wildflowers and the canyon sounds of birds, insects and wind.

The craggy beauty of the canyon walls made mockery of the predictable attractiveness of smoothness. So fascinating were the ridges, protrusions and indentations that I felt I could explore them forever with my eyes, as peace and silence wrapped me in an afternoon cocoon.

The kids returned. “Come on, come on,” they called, reluctant to leave me, but anxious to go on. So we left, taking a path out of the shade of the mountainside.

It seemed we had been climbing forever before we arrived at Bull Pasture. We were, at first, disappointed. It was barren and deserted, the canyon walls streaked in volcanic dress - but more subdued than those that had framed the verdant valley of Estes Canyon. We gazed longer, however, and it became more appealing as we sorted out scattered saguaro, organ pipe, ocotillo, cholla and barrel cacti mixed with occasional wildflowers nodding in the breeze.

“Now that I look at it, it is pretty,” said my son.

It had been attractive to earlier visitors, too not for the scenery, but for its narrow entrance, that could be barricaded to keep in cattle or keep out attackers.

Early ranchers wintered their cattle in the broad basin that overlooks Estes Canyon at approximately 3100 feet. The rich and abundant grasses kept stock healthy, and a spring and natural rock tanks provided water. The first recorded use by Americans is that of two men named Hubsteader and Powell, who raised cattle in the vicinity, in the early 1900s.

About 1913, William and Birdie Del Miller used the pasture for some of their horses and bulls and eventually kept their cattle there. The main problem with the pasture was it was too small to hold many cattle and could be easily overstocked.

Rancher Bobby Gray later tried placing his horses there, but they did not do well and he took them elsewhere.

The pasture was also important as a hiding place during the border disturbances of the early twentieth century. Its high location, water and plentiful grass made it an attractive refuge for those in disfavor in Mexico. In 1915, one group of Villistas, followers of the revolutionary Francisco Villa, were arrested in the basin by U. S. soldiers. Later, the National Guard followed a group of Mexicans into Bull Pasture only to find they had escaped over the sides of the basin by using ropes.

We would escape the basin, too, by simply returning down the same trail Nature provides colorful blossoms over several months. Some wildflowers are showing by mid-March with the masses blooming the first part of April. The saguaro, far left, blooms in May and the barrel cactus, left, as late as August.

We had climbed, but first we turned our backs on Bull Pasture to look westward across a panoramic sweep of mountain layers and valleys stretching across the horizon in shades of green, brown, purple and misty distant blues. For a moment, I felt a great personal power. I had faced the sun, conquered the trail and known the mountain. Now I was experiencing that sense of being larger than life and all its problems that only being on a mountaintop can give you. And, once again, I realized how dependent human beings are on nature not only for food and shelter, but for the emotional and spiritual strength she gives us when we come close enough to sense her real beauty, whatever the seasonal scene she sets for us to see.

Editor's note: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, of which Ajo Mountain Drive is only a small part, is open throughout the year. It is low desert so be prepared for rugged trails and backcountry roads. Birdlife thrives in the park, about 35 different residents, and 260 migratory visitors, as do kit foxes, ringtailed cats, kangaroo rats, bobcats and the usual assortment of small desert dwellers. Winter days in November, December, January, and February are sunny and warm with some rain, occasional sub-freezing temperatures and chilly winds. April, May and June offer clearer skies and progressively hotter days. And from July through September occasional violent thunderstorms occur with temperatures from 95° to 105° F. Just south of the park's visitor center is a 208-site campground. A motel, trailer park, campground, post office, grocery store and cafe are in Lukeville, five miles south.