After spending an entire month at an amazing little commune in central California, I finally left the beautiful Sierra Nevada foothills a week ago to make the drive south through Southern California to the desert of southern Arizona to spend some time camping again near the Mexican border south of Tucson.
It was my very first time in Southern California and western Arizona, and so the entire route was new territory for me, always fun covering new ground in your travels! The scenery rapidly changed from high mountains and farmland to your typical dry desert landscape. But unlike the desert terrain I was familiar with, southern California is land of the Joshua trees, and I was really excited to see my very first Joshua trees, and just in time for a beautiful sunset before dark.
I made the rest of the eight-hour drive to the border in the dark and stayed at a hotel in the small California town of Blythe as planned, and awakened to some more beautiful desert views from my hotel room, which included the iconic symbol of a hot climate - palm trees.
Views from my morning walk with Dakota around what felt a bit like a run down ghost town, before continuing the journey towards our next destination in slightly more inviting terrain:
The views seemed to improve as soon as we crossed the river and passed into Arizona, but that was due mainly to increasingly good Mountain View’s.
Then it was through the Sonoran desert to Phoenix and then Tucson, and I was pleasantly surprised to somehow miss rush hour traffic passing through both of these large cities 😋
Phoenix from the highway (I-10):
The highway took us through a long tunnel near Phoenix, my first time driving through such a tunnel in years.
Driving through Tucson at sunset made for beautiful views of the city’s high rises, but the one shot I got was blurry and didn’t do it justice so there’s no point in putting it up here...
Arriving after dark on a Saturday night to an area with limited camping is definitely the best way to chance not finding a campsite for the night, especially in southern Arizona in February when camping is so popular in these parts, but I did find a place to park my car and pitch my tent in a really cool area after the first location I arrived at was totally full with RVs. Still, camping was technically only allowed at designated campsites along this particular forest road, and all 10 sites were filled up so I opted to spend the night in what had obviously been a campsite before the designated sites were numbered and the rest deemed illegal. I woke up to amazing views at the base of the gorgeous Santa Rita Mountains in the Coronado National Forest, finding myself living the camping lifestyle once again, a bit of a shock after so much time living in a house as a part of a small community of people, several of whom I had become pretty close with. But I was enjoying the free time without any pressure to work, and the amazing views - there was even still snow on the peaks from the recent large winter storm that hit California and much of Arizona.
Being Sunday morning, thankfully a number of parties left, allowing me to move my setup to a designated site to avoid trouble if a ranger happened to drive through during my stay, and it even had better cell service, more trees with decent amount of shade and really nice up-close views of the Santa Ritas, which peak out at over 9,000 feet.
I spent six days at the foot of these gorgeous mountains in the mesquite tree forest before migrating just a couple dozen miles east to the other side of the Santa Ritas to an area I was already familiar with that has even more expansive views and a bit more peace and quiet. I thoroughly enjoyed my short time there, however, and probably would have stayed longer if it wasn’t so busy, particularly on the weekends.
From my campsite there were also amazing views of the Sierra Mountains and Green Valley below.
I was really impressed with the area, situated adjacent to Madero Canyon, home to an impressive array of plants and wildlife, and unbeknownst to me one of the premier birding areas in the entire country. Little had I realized how popular the high desert could be for so many birds, while the mountains are home to black bear and mountain lions among the other wildlife.
So many varieties of cacti and other prickly desert plants and so many different types of trees all within such a compact area, it seemed there were quite a few microclimates here in such close proximity to each other.
There were some interesting ‘mountain bike trails’ that were more challenging than fun on a bike, but Dakota sure loved getting off the beaten track.
And I appreciated the changing scenery compared to the far more enjoyable riding on the two mile forest road.
There were some super amazing sunsets too!
And not so shy free ranging cattle that hung out right next to my campsite one day.
The deserts of the southwest never ceases to amaze me, and I am still learning how varied the landscapes of different deserts and even different areas within the very same desert can be, many of which are quite hospitable to both wildlife and human campers alike (so long as one has plenty of water and is not visiting in the extreme heat of the summer!)
I’m certainly glad I found this little gem of a campsite, having finally completed my winter travels from the northwestern US in Washington all the way down through California into southern Arizona not far from the Mexican border.
And for the time being I’m perfectly content right where I’m at in southern Arizona, now on the other side of the Santa Ritas, where I was just blown away by another epic southwest sunset in the middle of putting this post together - here in the partially wooded, mesquite-dotted rolling grasslands that form the high semi-desert terrain of this unique area with its world class views, a little slice of the land connecting the Sonoran Desert of southwestern Arizona to the the Chihuahuan Desert of the southeast corner of the state.
Sun setting over the snow-capped Santa Ritas:
Rincon Mountains to the north of my campsite:
Sunset glow in the eastern sky, my yurt and the Whetstone Mountains beyond:
Nice post man! Great to see what this part of America looks like... Like a lot of Australia mind you.
Happy travels!
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