Ironwood Forest National Monument Hike…

We left Mesa Arizona and Sun Life RV Park to drive a little over 60 miles southeast just past Casa Grande, Arizona for a three night stay at Las Colinas RV Park. Three days is all that is allowed  at this park on the Passport America Rate of $25 per night. No way I would pay $50 per night here but for $25 per night it is a fine place to spend a few days.We highly recommend Passport America and those who are not members but would like to be can click this link to sign up. If you give them my name and Passport America number (John Hinton – C-515170) at signup we both get $20 to use for our next renewal. In addition we both will receive four months FREE on our renewals… Hey you can’t beat that!!!

After settling in here we decided the next day to drive about 25 miles miles down Interstate 10 to a turnoff on Sasco Road which leads to a seldom visited National Monument, Ironwood Forest National Monument. This 129,000 acre area derives its name from one of the longest living trees (up to 800 years) in the Arizona desert, the Ironwood tree (Olneya tesota). But this monument is typical of the Sonoran Desert as there are also numerous saguaro cacti, mesquite, creosote and lots of palo verde trees with their cool green bases.

Rugged mountain ranges called Silver Bell, Waterman, Ragged Top Mountain and Sawtooth are encompassed in this monument and serve as a wonderful backdrop to the rolling desert valleys below. The 15 miles of dirt road are mostly friendly but there were a couple stretches that made me happy to have a higher clearance four wheel drive CRV.

There are several endangered and threatened species that can be found here, including the Nichols turk’s head cactus and the lesser long-nosed bat but we weren’t lucky enough to see either of them. I was also checking out holes in the saguaro most likely made by the Gila Woodpeckers in search of ferruginous pygmy owls but didn't see any nor did we see any desert bighorn sheep even though I saw numerous tracks. We did see some Gambel’s quail, curve billed thrashers and a solitary roadrunner so at least we saw some wildlife. The saguaro Pictured just above and left made me feel like we were being watched…

The wildflowers were just beginning to exhibit their spring colors as there were blankets of yellow amongst a very green desert due to all the rain that this area has gotten over the past few weeks. Occasional splashes of white, red and purple flowers also peeked out low to the ground.

We didn’t actually follow a trail after parking at what was a really scenic boondocking location (complete with a very nice fire ring). We simply followed a drainage or wash for a little over a mile before it seemed to disappear amongst the lower slopes of  Sawtooth Mountain. Every now and then we would hike out of the wash and take a look at the beautiful Sonoran desert vistas with what appeared to be millions of saguaros.

We had considered hiking in the nearby Picacho State Park but I was looking for something a bit more remote and Ironwood National Monument was just the ticket. With the great weather it was the perfect place to hike. Sadly the weather is about to take a turn for the worse soon which has me investigating places to hide out until the stormy weather blows over. We leave here on the 28th so I have one more day to investigate and come up with a plan...