Cabeza Prieta
In mid-February, Nick and Ruth and Hobbs and Jack and David and I set out from Phoenix to visit the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. We left Route 8 in Tacna and headed south along a red dirt road that crosses an endless creosote flat.
All these places are creosote, bare ground, dry washes, stunted trees. This earth is too dry for the deer, too dry for the javelina. This is the furnace room of the Sonoran Desert."
-Charles Bowden, "Blue Desert"
After a sweet night under the stars, we decide to investigate the dunes to the east at the foot of the Mohawk Mountains. Not surprisingly, they were much taller than they looked from a distance.
Ruth, David, Hobbs and Jack take a break to enjoy the view.
At the very top of the highest dune was a single desert primrose.
We continued south past the Sierra Pinta to Christmas Pass, where we scrambled up cliffs of friable gray granite shot with veins of quartz.
This is one of the few approved campsites in the refuge, and it's a good one.
The pass provided the first thought-provoking 4WD terrain.
