It's not Florida, but ....
It's mid-January, and the snow I'd hoped for did not materialize. Not here anyway.
The snowbirds across the street flew the coop right after Christmas and will stay in Florida until the tulips emerge up here.
Me, I'm good with winter. But I do have a travel dream of my own this time of year and it does involve a warmer place. It's a place I think of now not because I want to escape the cold, but because January and February are about the only times you can go there and be sure the soles of your boots won't melt.
Really.
Pinacate is a volcanic field in Mexico just across from Arizona. I've been close -- to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument -- and while it is a special place in its own right, it's no Pinacate.
Pinacate is a stark, black volcanic field with perfect craters and cones. It is named for a beetle that, if disturbed, rears up and lets loose a fearsome stench. People in the Desert Southwest may tickle tarantulas and poke at scorpions, but they tend to let this little fella be.
Black sand dunes rise from the pumice soil around Pinacate, but in years when there has been enough winter rain, spring blooms in pinks and gold made all the more beautiful by the dark backdrop.
Pinacate, or as the Mexicans know it, Reserva de La Biosfera de El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar (Pinacate and Grand Desert Biosphere Reserve), is a place of extremes. Temperatures at the bottom of Crater Elegante are said to reach 150 degrees in the summer, and yet scientists have documented 560 plant species, 56 mammal species, 43 reptile species, 222 bird species, and -- get this -- 4 fish species in the 600-square-mile reserve.
There's a spot known as the "Bomb Wall" where slugs of molton lava were blasted from one of the exploding cones, cooled in midair and piled up in one place.
I lived in Arizona for several years, but never made it to Pinacate. I had some friends who tried from the Arizona side, but the road was too rugged for their 4-wheel-drive SUV.
"Maybe if we had a Hummer," they said disappointedly. (These are not people who are into gas-guzzling and conspicuous consumption.) Those who go also risk running into coyotes (the human smuggling kind) and drug runners along the way. Once there, they are generally safe, as long as they don't break their necks, run into scorpions, rattlesnakes, gila monsters, black widow spiders and the like, stay well hydrated -- all water must be brought in -- and be careful of the extremes of temperature. Deserts can turn quite cold at night.
I'm told Pinacate is one of the quietist places a human being can go these days. I admit that is one of the strongest draws for me, although I have always been drawn to oddities and extremes of nature. (This is intended as no reflection on my choice of boyfriends in the past.)
Let other people dream of pina coladas and palm trees swaying in warm breezes.
My mind will drift to the solitude of a black moonscape with lava caves, cholla cactus and blissful silence.
Someday, Pinacate.
The snowbirds across the street flew the coop right after Christmas and will stay in Florida until the tulips emerge up here.
Me, I'm good with winter. But I do have a travel dream of my own this time of year and it does involve a warmer place. It's a place I think of now not because I want to escape the cold, but because January and February are about the only times you can go there and be sure the soles of your boots won't melt.
Really.
Pinacate is a volcanic field in Mexico just across from Arizona. I've been close -- to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument -- and while it is a special place in its own right, it's no Pinacate.
Pinacate is a stark, black volcanic field with perfect craters and cones. It is named for a beetle that, if disturbed, rears up and lets loose a fearsome stench. People in the Desert Southwest may tickle tarantulas and poke at scorpions, but they tend to let this little fella be.
Black sand dunes rise from the pumice soil around Pinacate, but in years when there has been enough winter rain, spring blooms in pinks and gold made all the more beautiful by the dark backdrop.
Pinacate, or as the Mexicans know it, Reserva de La Biosfera de El Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar (Pinacate and Grand Desert Biosphere Reserve), is a place of extremes. Temperatures at the bottom of Crater Elegante are said to reach 150 degrees in the summer, and yet scientists have documented 560 plant species, 56 mammal species, 43 reptile species, 222 bird species, and -- get this -- 4 fish species in the 600-square-mile reserve.
There's a spot known as the "Bomb Wall" where slugs of molton lava were blasted from one of the exploding cones, cooled in midair and piled up in one place.
I lived in Arizona for several years, but never made it to Pinacate. I had some friends who tried from the Arizona side, but the road was too rugged for their 4-wheel-drive SUV.
"Maybe if we had a Hummer," they said disappointedly. (These are not people who are into gas-guzzling and conspicuous consumption.) Those who go also risk running into coyotes (the human smuggling kind) and drug runners along the way. Once there, they are generally safe, as long as they don't break their necks, run into scorpions, rattlesnakes, gila monsters, black widow spiders and the like, stay well hydrated -- all water must be brought in -- and be careful of the extremes of temperature. Deserts can turn quite cold at night.
I'm told Pinacate is one of the quietist places a human being can go these days. I admit that is one of the strongest draws for me, although I have always been drawn to oddities and extremes of nature. (This is intended as no reflection on my choice of boyfriends in the past.)
Let other people dream of pina coladas and palm trees swaying in warm breezes.
My mind will drift to the solitude of a black moonscape with lava caves, cholla cactus and blissful silence.
Someday, Pinacate.
posted by Mountain Laureate at 10:03 AM
2 Comments:
Good stuff. I wanna go! Frankly, I don't think Ican spend enough time out west since i looked down on a cathedral after a mountainbike and hike into the back side of Arches. I wuld go back just to look at th dinosaur footprints again. "Design that!" I would say to the creationist.
Northern Mexico is full of real goodies. I'm tempted to list them here except I think we need to whisper about them into each other's ears. The little sinkholes with utterly clear water and a universe of untroubled species, plant and animal. The riverine areas now increasingly being preserved. The Mexico side of the Bravo, across from Big Bend, which the government says it will turn into a national park associated with Big Bend in its conservation efforts but hasn't so far. I love it there, particularly the parts of it called the Zona de Silencio. Silent it is, except for the occasional federal looking for traficantes in armas and drogas. I do not know what makes us people of lush green landscapes from Maine to Tennessee fall so hard for "those ugly, dry places." I'm glad there aren't too many of us, though!
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