The Cactus Trip Diaries

Sunday, 22 March 2009 – North east of Ciudad Chihuahua

We headed out of Chihuahua on MEX 16, the main highway to Ojinaga and the border with the USA in Presidio, Texas. No, we were not going back to the States until tomorrow, but there were some good plant locations, but no towns that could offer accommodation between here and there, so we decided to do the route near Chihuahua in some detail, so that tomorrow we could run close to the border and do some more cactus stops nearer Ojinaga, as we want to cross the border at least by 16:00 hours – we all know what fun and full of surprises such crossings can be.

Today’s first Stop (S1374) was along MEX 16, as we saw some cacti along the roadside as we drove by at 110 km p.h. (70 mph). Good spot! Checking out the area on foot, we found Agave lechuguilia, Coryphantha sp., Echinocereus dasyacanthus – including many plants in advanced bud and eventually one plant actually with a yellow flower, wide open, E. enneacanthus,  Escobaria sp. (E. tuberculosa?), Fouquieria splendens, Mammilaria pottsii, Opuntia sp. #1, a small Opuntioid that looks like a Tephrocactus, but obviously is not,  Sclerocactus uncinatus ssp wrightii (?) the Resurrection Plant, Selaginella lepidophylla and Yucca sp. – incredible diversity of cactus flora! (Yes, I know that there are non-cactoid plants in that list as well).

S1375 was on the track to Presa Luis L. Leon, a.k.a. El Granero, a lake created by a dam built in the Rio Conchos to create a lake, the Presa. The stop was prompted by Eunice spotting a magenta flower while driving, Thelocactus bicolor in flower – dozens of plants. We also found: Agave lechuguilia, Coryphantha sp. – different from the one found at the previous stop as well as C. runyoni, Echinocactus horizonthalonius, Echinocereus dasyacanthus – more plants in flower, but with a range of flower colours from yellow to magenta, E. enneacanthus,   Fouquieria splendens, Mammilaria pottsii – in flower, Opuntia sp. #1, the small Tephrocactus like Opuntioid and Yucca sp.

It is appropriate here to mention S1378 here, a stop made on the way back from the Presa, just 300 m from S1375, but on flat terrain rather than on the rocky outcrop.  We found: Agave lechuguilia, Echinocereus dasyacanthus, E. enneacanthus,   Fouquieria splendens, Opuntia sp. #1 and the small Tephrocactus like Opuntioid, Thelocactus bicolor, and Yucca sp.

S1376 was near the lake, with a 30 m deep canyon leading to the lake. A few more rain storms is sure to wash sections of the road away. We stopped to take scenery shots but also found E. enneacanthus,   Fouquieria splendens, Opuntia sp. #1 & #2.

S1377 was yet closer to the lake and again it was Eunice who spotted a large clump of yet another different looking Coryphantha sp. It was hot (around 31 C ( 87 F) and we did not really want to go on for another stroll in the desert, but needs must, so we also found E. dasyacantus, Echinocactus horizonthalonius, Echinocereus enneacanthus,   Fouquieria splendens, M. lasiacantha (in flower), M. pottsii, Tephro-like opuntioid, Yucca sp.

From here we turned round and went back along the track & road that we came. S1378 is already covered earlier. S1379 near El Uno was for exceptionally large clumps of E. enneacanthus, in bud. I about a week’s time, this area will be awash with cactus in flower. Other cacti found were a ‘blue’ Agave sp. – planted or natural? – a different Coryphantha, with large tubercles and long spines, or was it a Thelocactus sp.? E. horizonthalonius, E. enneacanthus, and Sclerocactus uncinatus ssp wrightii.

Apologies to the non-cactophiles in the audience, but the species list of plants seen today is impressive and probably matches any habitat that we’ve seen in the last 5 months for diversity.

Life is good, even after some 5 months on the road!

Tomorrow we head for Texas.

Saturday, 21 March 2009 – La Junta to Ciudad Chihuahua

The area where we spent the night was flat and uninspiring. How were we going to find cacti here? To the east and to the north was Mennonite country. I was surprised to find how little I knew about these people. To learn more about this curious religious sect, take a look at  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mennonites

The area where they live is flat and featureless. All small settlements are known as a Campo and given a number. The problem was that these numbers are written as text on the map we had, and in numbers on the signs, and I never took the Spanish classes where we did numbers greater than 12. Needless to say, very cm / inch of land had been cultivated and we did not even bother to look for cacti. Pictures of Mennonite country have been filed under ‘S1369 – no cacti or other succulent plants’.

We wanted to get to the Cumbres de Majalca National Park, north of the town of Chihuahua. There is only one road in, at the south-east side and we approached from the south-west, had taken the long route north, then east, then south to get there. The route north was the Mennonite stretch already discussed. When we turned east (shown as CHIH 50 on road side signs, but as CHIH 160 on the road map) we saw some low hills and as we hit the rocks, farming stopped abruptly. A few km in (still outside the park) and we stopped to take a ‘quick look’ (S1370) that was really welcome after the cactus less morning: We found Agave parryi – massive plants as well as young seedlings, Coryphantha sp., Echinocereus polyacanthus – including two plants in flower and Mammillaria barbata (syn. M. morricalli), just three tiny plants, but one in bud and the other in flower. It seems we’ve been arriving just a bit too soon for flowering here. Going through my pictures, it seems that I travelled most of the day with the camera’s GPS switched off, so will have to retrace my steps the hard way.

S1371 was a bit farther along on CHIH 50 as the road went through large patches of Agave parryi – very impressive, and some equally impressive scenery.

We hit the main Juarez / El Paso (border with the US) to Chihuahua road, MEX 45 and after some 40 km turned west on to the road into the Park. S1372 was at km 21 and on the road into the park. Here we found more Agave parryi, but also Echinocereus pectinatus / dasyacanthus – difficult to tell when not in flower, I’ll call them all pectinatus, short for ‘pectinatus complex’ for now and will read up about them when I get home (I did translate a book on this complex from German into English, for the German Arbeitsgruppe Echinocereenfreund but my memory does not go back far enough to remember the main differences). Alain got quite excited about a Euphorbia sp. that looked at first glance like Edelweiss*. We found it in flower and in fruit. It is not really succulent, but looked cute. During this time I noticed that the GPS had been off all day. So I’m back with having accurate Stop data from this stop on again.

S1373 is for scenic shots and brief leg stretches between S1372 and our turn around point in the village of Cumbres de Majalca. Plants recorded include: Agave parryi, Coryphantha sp., and an Opuntia sp – huge pads, yellow flowers, but mainly still in bud.

Tomorrow we start looking at cacti close to Chihuahua on the way to El Paso.

*Edelweiss
Dear Alain,
What you found is Euphorbia radians var. radians. Indeed, it looks very much like an edelweiss when in flower – but hidden underneath soil level there is a big tuber. It always surprises me that it isn’t more popular  in collections.
Wouldn’t its discovery make a nice article in the Euphorbia World?
Greetings Volker Buddensiek

Friday 20 March 2009 – Creel to La Junta

Thursday, 19 March 2009 – south of Creel

As we drove from yesterday’s last stop into Creel we passed a couple of signs to water falls that we decided to visit today. They always make a good scenic subject and so far we had always found cacti and other succulents near by.

And so we  took the turning east off MEX 25 to the Cascade de Cusarare except we should have turned west. Never mind. We drove through the village and sneaked photographs of the Tarahumara people, women washing clothes in the river, men ploughing fields with a horse and simple plough. We stopped (S1362) along the stream and took a look on the rocks on either side of the now almost dry river. No cacti or other succulents found.

S1363 was the stretch from MEX 25 to the west where we parked the car in a flat area with waste bins for tourists but again no one in sight.  Half way along this track Eunice spotted Echinocereus scheeri, a small plant growing in moss on one of the huge boulders along the side of the road. Plants were  covered in pine needles and leaf litter from the deciduous trees and each needed a tidy up before I took their picture – just to give Angie some competition in a future cactus photo contest. I took some ‘before clean up’ pictures as well to show plants in their natural state. This boulder also had Echeveria chihuahuensis growing on it. So far Echeveria have been hiding from us.

Before we knew it, we were back in Creel. It was only 12:30 – what next? We decided to go to Divisadera, regarded by many as the best spot on the Copper Canyon railway line. It promised to offer some excellent views in the area and did not disappoint. (S1364 – no cacti or other succulents). We took a look at the station and it seemed that a train was due to arrive – apparently the timetables for this train are for guidance only. Sure enough, just as we had taken up positions for some good shots, its loud whistle announced its imminent arrival. This is one of the few places on the line where there is a double track so that the train from Chihuahua could pass the train from Los Mochis. Alain has worked for the Belgian Railways for 30 years and realised that we were on a cactus & succulent plant trip, but his colleagues were clearly expecting him to have travelled on this famous train. Here was the opportunity!  Cliff owned up to being a train spotter as well as a plane spotter and happily joined him, while I took video clips of them boarding the train. The other train, the one from Chihuahua also arrived and nearly ran Cliff down as he crossed the track to join his train.

Eunice and I looked round the Tamahumara souvenir seller’s market and then decided to drive on towards Urique, realising that we’d never get there, as the road turned from hard top to dirt and our speed reduced accordingly.

Not a bad day at all. Tomorrow we’ll look for more waterfalls and their associated cacti & succulent plant flora.

Wednesday, 18 March 2009 – Guachochi to Creel

It was only 153 km from Guachochi to Creel, so there was plenty of time for a side trip, to the Barranca de Sinforosa. This is quoted as a major tourist attraction as it is the deepest Canyon on the North American Continent, with the floor 1,830 m (6,000 ft) below the rim.  For  such a potentially important attraction there were surprisingly few signs and out of town, the road soon turned into a poor dirt track. After some lucky guesses, we finally arrived at a gate with a sign to say the we had arrived, or rather, that we were now entering private land and had to pay admission to proceed with our car. The admission was the princely sum of 10 peso each, a little more than 70 pence (UK) or 80 cents (US) depending on how the markets have been behaving recently. Just follow the trail, we were told in Spanish. We did.

About 1 km / mile along the track we arrived at a car park, deserted, from where we could walk to a view point. (S1358). No shops, info stands, ice cream salesmen etc. just us and silence. As we walked to the edge of the mirador a scene unfolded that was absolutely amazing. Cliff and I have each visited the Grand Canyon and had been disappointed because the vista was just too large to absorb, too remote. This was much better. The only way to convey the impressiveness of this scenery is to make you wait for pictures and film clips when I get home. For readers in the USA, just ask Eunice to do a presentation of her Mexico 2009 trip. No, I’m not on commission. Plants photographed included Agave sp. (maximilliana?), Dasylirion wheeleri, Opuntia sp. (boring).

After we had taken our pictures and movie clips, we considered the track to the waterfall, the Cascade de Rosalinda – 4×4 WD vehicles only, it said. 4 km away. Cliff took over the steering wheel as my back is still touchy and a sudden jolt might have caused a jar that makes controlling a car an extra unnecessary challenge. Good choice, as for Chile travellers, this track equalled those up the Cerro Perales near Taltal or ‘Horror Hill’ near Caldera. We made it to a small car park (S1359) (also deserted) with a suspension foot bridge hanging over a narrow canyon with a 100 ft drop offering a view of the waterfall. This could be spectacular in the rainy season, but that is in Summer, so we just had a small trickle to admire. I crossed the bridge twice, in both directions while the others went plant hunting upstream. Having moved back some more ‘barriers of fear’ – a few of the planks of the bridge were missing, others were broken and if you moved too fast, the bridge started swinging – I joined in with the plant hunt. Cliff and Alain had already found a rock with cacti: Opuntia sp. (boring), Echinocereus scheerii and Mammillaria (Mammillopsis) senilis, in flower! This was a great find and while the others carried on their plant hunt, I climbed over this rock and took pictures of the (few) plants there from every conceivable angle. It turned out that I should have gone with them as they found more M. senilis, a multi headed plant with several flowers and apparently visited by butterflies. I haven’t seen the pictures yet, but I bet that they are out of this world!

It was about 13:00 when we left, still with some 170 km to drive to Creel. The MEX 25 (shown as MEX 23 on our maps) was a very good tarmac road with very few cars, so the only thing to slow us down were the spectacular views that appeared around every other corner. These pictures and a few taken at a couple of brief leg stretch stops are recorded as S1360 and included Agave sp. (shrevei ssp. magna ?) and A. filifera ssp. multifilifera (= A. leopoldii).

S1361 was at km 143, although the 4 was missing from the sign, but it was still possible to see where the stencil had been. This was a location suggested by Werner Rischer’s Chihuahua book as a location for Echinocereus scheerii and it did not take long, walking up a side track, before we had found the plants. As at the waterfall, these rocks were covered with patches of moss and it seemed that these locations were favoured by cacti and other succulents such as Echeveria sp. (E. craigiana?), tiny plants growing between the moss and the leaf litter that had been caught by them. There were a number of young seedlings from both plants here. Unfortunately the light between the hills was now too poor for photography, so time to push on.

Another excellent day plant and scenery wise.

Tuesday, 17 March 2009 – Hidalgo del Parral to Guachochi

Eunice had asked if we could drive in the opposite direction to where we would spend the night, so that we could see Agave flexispina, about 30 km south of Hidalgo del Parral on MEX 45. As we have tended to find interesting cacti where ever we have looked for Agave, we raised no objections. As we approached the area where Gentry reported these plants some 50 years ago, things did not look too good. We had developed the art of Agave stalking, and there were no stalks to be seen.

We took a turning to the Presa Santa Rosalia, a water reserve. The scenery was as illustrated in Gentry’s book: open grassland hills, but without the Agave. We went on to the water’s edge of the Presa, (S1350) and a good job too. We just went through the motions of looking for plants when really we felt that there were none to be found and BINGO, a globular cactus. But what was it? I thought for  moment that I was back in Argentina, as this cactus had naked buds and looked very much like a Gymnocalycium. After consulting my colleagues, we narrowed the choice down to Coryphantha or Thelocactus – do Thelocactus have a grove along part of their tubercles? And then the naked buds clinched it: Thelocactus bicolor ssp heterochromus – the form known as ‘var. pottsii’.  And then another cactus: Mammillaria sp. (heyderi?), flat as a pancake. And of course there were the usual selection of Cylindropuntia and Opuntia (one each). But no Agave.

Very pleased with our cactus stop, but disappointed that we had not found the Agave, we drove back and made a brief stop before reaching MEX 45 (S1351) where I thought that I had seen some cacti earlier. The Opuntias here had enormous pads – Alain measured a couple at 40 cm diameter. I heard a crunchy sound underfoot and found that I had stepped on a dead globular cactus with very distinct spines – Echinocactus (Homocephala) texensis. We carried on looking, following the principle that if you find one, there have to be others, but to no avail. Just one more Mammillaria sp. (heyderi?).

Still on the track back to MEX 45 we stopped to let Cliff close a cattle gate behind us. (S1352). As I looked out of the window, I could not believe my eyes. There, underneath the barbed wire fence, stood a small Agave! Agave flexispina! And as others looked for more plants, I spotted another from the car, also under the wire. Alain took a look at the other side of the road and there he found a hillside full of the plants! They were on a gently down ward slope that took them out of our field of vision. Any flower stalks had been cut down, as though in an attempt to conceal the plants. No wonder that we had not seen them on our way to the Reservoir.

Eunice asked if we could drive the few miles farther south to Gentry’s reported location (S1353) where we found a couple of plants right alongside the road. While taking their picture, Eunice shouted: ‘What is this?’ The plant next to Agave flexispina was Echinocereus pectinatus, a large and venerable plant. Again, where there is one ……. And so we found a dozen or so more, all ages, some in bud. And a few specimens of Thelocatus bicolor ssp heterochromus ‘var. pottsii’ and just a couple more Mammillaria sp. (heyderi?).

We found our way back into H.d. Parral and out again, this time on MEX 24 heading west. After a while this road seemed to become MEX 432 before turning into the MEX 23. We had left he flat plains that were characteristic of the south east of H.d. Parral and were back into the Sierra Madre Occidentalis with wonderful scenery. S1354 was a quick stop at km 21, La Piedra, for a couple of large Agave parryi along the side of the road.

S1355 was for scenery shots taken from the car. and S1356 was a ‘leg stretch’ stop where I spotted some Echinocereus pectinatus growing out of the rocks along the side of the road and Fouquieria splendens and Opuntia sp. on the rocks above the road. Alain and Cliff had taken the opposite side of the road and were outside earshot. On their return they reported E. sp. (enneacanthus?), E. pectinatus,  Mammillaria sp. (heyderi?), M. sp. #2 (grusonii?) and T. bicolor ssp heterochromus.

We pulled over again farther along the road (S1357) and found huge Agave parryi. Alain had pulled up on a track that finished at a gate. While we were photographing Agave’s, a car pulled up behind him. We could see some discussion going on, the gate being opened and the other car and ours driving in. We walked over, as there were A. parryi here to be photographed inside the barbed wire fence. The other car was driven by a lady a few years older than we are, plus an elderly gentleman, her father. She invited us to drive along the track to her modest home (her words – and true) where we parked the car and followed her on foot down a track that ended in a mirador with a wonderful view below us into a canyon. We believe that they were members of the local Indian tribe. She (Maria Elena) explained that they had not much money, but that their farm went on for many kilometres – it was probably the size of Luxembourg! In England, few people could afford a house with a view like that and own the land that we could see and beyond. Wealth is a relative thing. She explained that she and her parents had lived here all their lives. There were no cacti here, but some on the other side of the canyon, too far for us to explore in the time before sunset.

Another great day and we arrived tired and satisfied in Guachochi, from where we will drive tomorrow through the Barranca del Cobre – Copper Canyon, to Creel.