(Top:Sotol and prickly pear cactus)
(Bottom: Dan checks out guidebook near a Ocotillo plant.)
Dan got the car washed yesterday so he was not pleased that the route to the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Park included 5 miles on a dusty dirt road again! We decided that we’d better wait until we finish exploring places off the beaten track before we wash the car again. (maybe just before we leave Las Cruces.) These trips into the desert and on these unpaved roads have made us realize why so many folks have SUVs or pick-ups!
About ten miles north east of Las Cruces, the Chihuahuan Desert Neture Park lies near the base of the Dona Ana Mountain range in the northern part of the Chihuahuan Desert. We were surprised to discover that the Chihuahuan Desert is the largest desert in North American, stretching from southern New Mexico more than 600 miles south through the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It covers 250,000 square miles and is one of the most biologically diverse deserts in the world.
It was a beautiful sunshiny day and even though the desert plants were dormant we enjoyed the scenery and a picnic at the park before hiking the educational trail up to the top of a large hill (back east we probably would call it a mountain!) I was, however, a little puzzled that the picnic table bench on my side of the table was only about six inches from the ground! It worked OK until I had to get up!
The park has been designed to foster an understanding of the desert among school children and others who visit the park. Interpretative signs on the trail identify various kinds of desert plants and give information about animal and plant adaptation, desertification, and the history of humans in the desert. We learned a lot. For instance, DID YOU KINOW...
1. …that a kangaroo rat can live its entire life without drinking a drop of water?
2. …that the annual average precipitation in this region is less than 9 inches, half of which comes in July and August?
3. …that some creosote bushes live to be several thousand years old and are likely related to the earth’s oldest living organisms?
4. …that Native Americans used barrel cactus pulp to made candy and jelly; their flowers, to create a yellowish pigment, and the hooked central spines, as fishhooks?
5. …that humans have resided in this region for the past 12,000 years?
As we learned to recognize the winter version of various cacti, mariola, mesquite, creosote, tarbush (found only in the Chihuahuan Desert), yucca, sotol, black grama, ocotillo, and crucifixion thorn I could not help but think how beautiful this park must be in the spring when the foliage becomes green and many of these plants have beautiful blossoms. Nevertheless I found beauty in the variety of graceful grasses, barren bushes and other interesting formations. Dan is amused that I find a reason to take a picture of so many different plants.
The hike up the hill and back to the parking lot took us an hour or so since we stopped to read our guidebook at each marker, to take pictures, and to enjoy the vista that lay before us. Across the Jornado Basin and the valley we could see the Organ, San Andres and San Augustin mountain ranges. To the west lay the Dona Ana Mountains. Along a large arroyo we could see thicker foliage and get an understanding of how the land is sculpted by the wind and water. We were reminded, also, that the mountains that surrounded us were formed from volcanic activity 35-45 million years ago.
In addition to the variety of plant life in this desert there are an amazing variety of animals that have adapted to the hot ,dry climate. Although we did not observe them, we read about rodents, toads, snakes (including rattlesnakes!), lizards, jackrabbits, harvester ants, beetles, and other insects. We did see evidence of some of these creatures. For instance, many of the prickly pear cacti had large bite marks in them. Our guidebook indicated that during winter black-tailed jackrabbits and desert cottontail rabbits eat the pads, somehow avoiding the spines or biting the spines from the pads. Prickly pear is an important resource for many animals because of the high water and nutrient content.
For most of the afternoon the desert was deserted except for us! A solitary hiker with an English accent passed us on the trail going rather fast. We never saw him again and his car was gone when we returned to the parking lot. Toward the end of our hike we saw two other men who appeared to be doing research of some sort. One of the most dramatic observances I noted was the quiet. I kept asking Dan to “listen to the silence,” It was so peaceful and relaxing.
We arrived back home just in time for the Duke-St. John’s basketball game, which had a good outcome as far as we were concerned!
Tomorrow we will attempt to do one or two remaining things on our list of places we want to go before leaving Las Cruces in a week.
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