Desert Giants: A Birthday Hike Through Saguaro National Park

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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

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi there, craig the Natural Medic.
I am filming today on my 50thbirthday, april 4th 2025.
And I'm in Saguaro NationalPark in the East District, which
is near Tucson, arizona.
Let's take a look at what we'reseeing out here.
We're seeing all thesebeautiful saguaros they are so

(00:29):
ginormous and magnificent anddoing the Cactus Forest Drive
but it's an eight mileround-trip drive one way and
doing some trails off of that.
Please join me as I celebratemy 50th birthday here in Saguaro
National Park.
Interestingly, you can see onthis panel here in 1935, this

(00:51):
monument was set aside and nowit's a national park.
Tons of Saguaro's out here.
In 1960, you had about half asmany.
Not long after the park wasestablished, there was a freeze
that killed a bunch of them.
They realized in 1962 thatfreezing temperatures for more
than 20 hours could killsaguaros, so they did predict

(01:17):
that the doom would be and therewould be no saguaros in the
1990s.
But they have proved us wrongand they are still here.
Isn't that crazy?
When I was in the visitor centerdefinitely saw some expansion
of the city of tucson, which isstretched out before us here.

(01:38):
They're estimating by 2040,which is not that far away, it's
20, 25 now Pima County willhave one and a half million
residents.
It's rapidly growing, sothey're trying to create a
buffer.
You have this low densityneighborhood in front of us here
.
That is on the edge of the city, but this could happen where

(02:03):
you have higher density, justlike in the picture here coming
towards us.
There is the city of Tucson, inthe valley with the big
mountains behind it, and thensaguaro national park east side,
which I'm in.
The city has grown up towardsit.
Hey, if you're enjoying thisvideo, make sure to give it a

(02:23):
good old thumbs up.
That gets it out to more people, so that more people can see it
here on YouTube, and Iappreciate it very much.
Now back to the video.
I took a quick little dive ontothe desert ecology trail and,
interesting thing here, thesaguaro.
In order to get establishedthey have to have what they call
nurse trees.

(02:44):
So if you look here there's ayoung saguaro.
It's only about three feet talland the tree to its left is a
mesquite tree.
Those nurse trees provideshelter from the heavy rains,
from cold temperatures, fromsunburn.
The baby saguaros look likethis.
They're like as big as the tipof your finger, but they will

(03:08):
grow and become big, tall guyslike these ones that are around
here, and in order to do thatthey must have a nurse to get
them off the ground.
Okay, for our next trick, we'regoing to do the Loma Verde or,
starting at the Loma Verdetrailhead the volunteer lady

(03:32):
recommended as one of the trailsto do today Loma Verde over to
Pink Hill and then aroundSqueeze Pin and back out.
It makes it like a 3.8 mileloop and we did get a little pin
.
It's this Saguaro National ParkHiking for Health pin.

(03:52):
If you do three miles or morein the park you get to have that
, and we're going to go downthis trail.
It's 0.1 to Mesquite, 0.2 toSqueeze Pin, 0.3 Monument Wash,
0.6 Loma Verde Mine Site and 1.2to the Pink Hill, so it'll take
about two hours to do.
Let's get to it.

(04:13):
Okay, check this guy out.
This one looks like an octopus.
You have bunches of arms comingout from it and they say it
takes 50 to 75 years for asaguaro to grow its first arm,

(04:36):
and today's my 50th birthday, soI guess I'm just now growing my
first arm.
Copper mining was an economicadventure during the 1880s in
Arizona.
The mounds and depressions thatI'm going to show you in just a
second are remains of a 350feet shaft dug by the Loma Verde
Copper Company in 1901.

(04:56):
Although they were able to getore that was 16% copper out,
they were soon able to have itenclosed because 16% copper out
they were soon able to.
They were soon having to closebecause it just wasn't
profitable.
Here's the little shaft areaover here and you can walk over
there.
I'm going to walk over thereand check it out.
You can see down here at myfeet there's some green rocks.

(05:16):
Those would be copper ore.
I did ask the volunteers whatthe average age of the saguaro
out here is and they said 175years.
It takes 50 to 75 years forthem to start growing arms,
depending on climatic conditions.
What's interesting is theseholes they're hollowed out by

(05:38):
Gila woodpeckers and then overtime they abandon them and other
species move in super crazy.
Huh, this one is one that thevolunteer was telling us about
for hiking this trail.
I believe they call it a crown.
It looks like it's got broccolihead, isn't that crazy?

(05:58):
Most of these are grounded.
We do have one right here nextto us, a smaller one that is got
some little sprouts on the topof it pretty wild.
This one looks like a face,pretty crazy.
It's almost he's saying hello,I'm a saguaro.

(06:19):
I'm just hanging out here inthe sonoran desert.
Saguaro, I'm just hanging outhere 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 leftback to Loma Verde trailhead.
We're about halfway done, nottoo bad, it's pretty easy.

(06:41):
If you look out here, look atthis beautiful view of the
saguaros and the mountains inthe distance.
That's a Santa Catalina, Ibelieve, and the one getting
rained on right now is MountLemmon, spelled with two M's

(07:05):
After, I think after a person,and I can't remember exactly
what the person was named for.
So we're talking about on thispanel, desert Florida Mountain
Peak.
Obviously, on the desert floorwe have cactus and scrub brush,
but way over there is the RinconMountains or Rincon Mountains

(07:29):
in the park as a whole.
I think they're talking aboutboth sections, the west and the
east.
In the park you have adiversity of habitats, six
different life zones.
You have desert scrub,everything in between, up to
mountain forests which have grayfoxes, black bears, etc.
This other panel at the site istalking about fire and how it's

(07:54):
a natural event.
All the fires that arethreatening 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 fireadapted.
This is called the Javelinarocks after the Javelinas, which
are not pigs but actuallycollared peccaries, and they're

(08:17):
closely related to rodents.
This is what the rocks looklike and they're supposed to
resemble the Javelinas.
So this is what the rocks looklike.
They're supposed to resemblethe javelinas which are found
here in the desert, but I didn'tsee any today.
For the last major hike of theday, I'm going to do the Tanque
Verde, or is it Tanque Verde,which I think means the green

(08:40):
tank?
Again, my Spanish should not betrusted, but if you look here,
it does show this ridge line,starting at the Javelina picnic
area, which is past the Javelinarocks, going up.
If you take the whole thing, itgoes all the way up to Tango
Verde Peak, which is the highestpeak on this ridge line, but it
continues on to Cowhead Saddleand then Cowhead Saddle goes to

(09:03):
Helen's Dome, manning, camp,arizona Trail, all that kind of
stuff.
Pretty good, climbing here.
We're going to try to go and seehow far we can get.
The volunteer at the parkvisitor center said that going
up there on this ridgeline whichis located here, probably go to

(09:25):
maybe where that little whitespot is on top of the ridge
Might go a little further justto get a good view of what we
can see, depending on water etc.
But if you go to this one overhere you can definitely see how
many trails there are in thepark.
This part of the park over here, this little sliver, I would

(09:48):
say maybe a tenth of the park sowe can zoom in.
A tenth of the park and maybeI'll see it very well is quote
unquote developed.
The rest of the park, which isthat darker green, is wilderness
area and undeveloped, so it'sjust trails that go all across
that area, plus on three sidesthe southern part of the little

(10:09):
tail end of the deal, and thenover here you have the Coronado
National Forest, so it extendsout that area.
In the park itself there'salmost 200 miles of trail and
that's pretty amazing Right nowat the beginning of April,
perfect time.
Let's go do it.
We climbed up here on the trailand you can see a beautiful view

(10:31):
of the Catalinas straight ahead.
The city of Tucson, of course,is below and I'm surprised that
the Saguaro's being this many uphigh, I would think it would be
colder.
According to my watch, at abouta thousand feet of climbing, it

(10:52):
seems like it would be enoughto deter the saguaros from
growing up this high because itwould be colder, more chance of
freezing, etc.
Straight ahead in the clouds.
Over there is Mount Lemmon.
It's been an awesome day hereat Saguaro National Park on the
east side district.

(11:15):
I really enjoyed my stay.
This trail keeps going on.
There's some really coollooking saguaros over there.
I might check out before I walkdown.
There's lots of ocotillo aroundme.
The gentleman we met earliersaid the Ocotillo is an
indicator of caves because theylike to grow on limestone.
He is the resident 82 year oldnaturalist around here.

(11:38):
It could indicate the presenceof caves.
Hiked about two miles up here,took about an hour.
Nice, beautiful day Now gonnahike back down.
We got one more stop before weend the day here in beautiful
Saguaro National Park.
Made it back safely to theTango Verde trailhead, did about

(12:00):
two miles in two miles back,probably up on one of those
ridges up there.
Nice hike.
Someday I would love to comeback and do a longer hike, maybe
an overnight or a couple nights, for this visit to the Saguaro
National Park east side.
You have to cope with change.
The climate forecast is goingto be hotter and drier.

(12:22):
In thousands of years they haveadapted to harsh conditions
here and thrived.
You wouldn't have all thesesaguaros here in one place if
they weren't, if there wasn'tgreat conditions for them to
survive.
You have the coyote, you havethe agave, you have the gila
monster.
All of these animals and plantshave ways that they can adapt

(12:49):
and survive in the desert.
I hope you enjoyed your triptoday to Saguaro National Park
on the east side.
I had a great 50th birthdayspending it here.
I've got to go get something toeat.
Until next time, I would lovefor you to subscribe to the
channel to get more videos likethis.

(13:12):
If you have questions orcomments, please leave those
below, and until next time I'llsee you on the trail.
Bye-bye.