Cactus Blog

The Grand Junction (CO) Sentinel goes trekking for cactus.

Ute Canyon is one of four main canyons within Colorado National Monument. It’s not the longest, nor does it contain the most spectacular rock formations…

Well, that’s not promising. What else are you offereing?

Last year at this time, I found… Ruby Red Claret Cup Cactus and common pink prickly pear preparing to pop.

We’re a little behind this year. Nonetheless, I spied a handful of colorful wildflowers already in bloom… The cactus are just beginning to bud, so you’ll have to wait a while to photograph them.

OK.

The Arizona quarter is finally being released, with the famous Saguaro design.

Isn’t it lovely?

I see some Opuntias on there too, plus what is that I see in the background? Why, I think it’s a sunset! Yes! Yes it is a sunset! And here I thought the sun set over the Pacific, as viewed from California, not over the Grand Canyon. What were those numismatists thinking?

The Blue Mountains Courier-Herald from Thornbury, ON, Canada sends out travel writers to visit US National Parks on occasion. The Canadian travel writers don’t stay in lodges, they tent it.

Just got back from hiking and camping in the Grand Canyon Sunday night and I have to tell you the place is amazing….

Flowering cacti was the subject of our amateur yet brilliant photography.

Our eyes screened the rocky desert hoping to sight a blooming prickly pear cactus or the violet flowers peeping from a barrel head or hedgehog cactus. Although only April, pictures were snapped for our aspiring wall galleries at home.

It does seem to be a good year for cactus blooms everywhere. Even the National Parks are getting in on the act. And yet these Canadians didn’t publish any of this chap’s photos for me to “borrow.” How rude of them.

…among the Saguaros!

“We had our first rattlesnake sighting today,” she announced….

Hikers on the Cactus Forest Trail in Saguaro National Park were startled Sunday by a sign warning that aggressive mountain lions had been sighted in the last 36 hours….

All this, and more, signal that the Sonoran Desert spring is full upon us, with all its ambivalent blessings.

So goes the Arizona spring. Via the Arizona Daily Star. Click through to see the Palo Verdes in bloom.

The <a href="http://cactusjungle.com/archives/blog/exit.php?url_id=1801&amp;entry_id=1609" title="http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/0118quicktrip0118.html" onmouseover="window.status=’http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/arizonaliving/articles/0118quicktrip0118.html’;return true;" onmouseout="window.status=”;return true;">Arizona Republic visits</a> their local National Park, Saguaro National Park, and comes away the better for it.<br /><br /><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Even if you haven’t been to the western part of this park, you can imagine what it looks like. Massive stands of the namesake cactus are everywhere.<br />
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But fewer people are familiar with the park’s Rincon Mountain District, 30 miles east of the more visited Tucson Mountain District.<br />
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There are fewer saguaros in the eastern section, but it’s thick with other cactuses: cholla, prickly pear, barrel, hedgehog.</span><br /></div><br />There are some nice back roads too. It’s all so dense with so many different types of cactus you could just collapse from all the spiny goodness.<br /><br />

The Helena National Forest has a lovely <a href="http://cactusjungle.com/archives/blog/exit.php?url_id=1749&amp;entry_id=1552" title="http://www.fs.fed.us/rl/helena/resources/heritage_resources/lewis_clark.shtml" onmouseover="window.status=’http://www.fs.fed.us/rl/helena/resources/heritage_resources/lewis_clark.shtml’;return true;" onmouseout="window.status=”;return true;">Lewis and Clark Expedition</a> page, and in the frosty winter I thought I’d share a cactus bloom with you.<br /><br /><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><img width="142" hspace="5" height="212" border="2" align="left" src="/blog/uploads/misc/lc_prickleypear.jpg" />The Three Forks, the headwaters of the Missouri River offered the exhausted travelers a short reprieve. The men hunted, fished and worked skins into leather for clothes and moccasins. The captains took map readings and scouted ahead. For Sacajawea, this was the place where she had been captured and taken to the Mandan village. Recognizing her homeland and assuring them that her people were near, boosted the men’s spirits.<br />
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The expedition did eventually find the Shoshone and obtained horses, thanks in large part to Sacajawea. After several more months of strenuous travel through the mountains and down the Columbia River, in November 1805, they finally reached the Pacific Ocean.</span><br /></div><br />