Tuscon to Picacho, Arizona – 6 April 2024

We stayed in the Picacho State Park for a couple of days which is based at the bottom of the beautiful Picacho Peak in Arizona. It was lovely to be in amongst the mountains and the flowering desert plants. Our site was a good size with a separate area to bbq and sit at a picnic table. There were a few other RVs around, but certainly not busy.

There were a few hikes in the park but many were difficult ascents to the top of the peak, with gloves required to hold onto chains to pull one up. Certainly not for me. So instead we hiked along the Calloway trail which led to an overlook across Tuscon. They used to mine iron ore here and there was once a mill but everything close because of lack of water. We did see a waterfall but again no water just stains on the rocks where water falls in the rainy season.

The park had literally thousands of Sagauros and it was quite interesting to see all the different shapes and sizes that the Cacti grow in. Known as the Tree of the desert, it can grow about 30 ft tall and live for about 150 years. The pleats along its trunk and arms, expand holding water in the Cactus. Inside the Sagauro are 18-21 strong ribs that hold it sturdy. Its shallow roots spread out about 30 ft around it.

From our site we could see the I5 which had a constant stream of traffic and also a very busy commercial railway line with trains that ran throughout the day. Many had multiple locomotives – sometimes several locomotives at both the back and front of the train. We couldn’t believe the length of these freight trains – Derek counted 300 containers on one of them. A bill was presented last year in Tucson limiting the length of freight trains to 8,500 feet, this in a rural district where freight train lengths can be as long as 18,000 feet. The issue is that cars can wait 1.5 hours to cross the tracks which means being late for work/school. Also if there is an accident, the first responders cannot get to that location on time.