The Cactus Trip Diaries

Wednesday, 25 April 2012 – Green River to Goblin Valley and back

Today marks the halfway point of this trip – time flies when you are enjoying yourself. We’ve already collected thousands of images between us and no doubt there will be more to come, to sort out and arrange in order, ready for my first presentation on 26 May in Woking.

After yesterday’s heat, it was almost nice to wake up to an overcast sky and temperatures in the mid 20s C (= 70s F). There was also a strong breeze and in a bone dry environment this caused dust and sand particles to get into eyes, nose and on camera lenses. Still, the cloud cover softened the contrast to a more acceptable level.

Ian Woolnough had suggested that Pediocactus and Sclerocactus exist in Goblin Valley State Park, so this became today’s target. Some 5 miles before reaching the road that SatNav knew about, we came across a turning that was signposted to the Park. SatNav had another tantrum, insisting that we’d drive 4-5 miles before making a U-turn (why not straight away?) in apparently every anxious tones when we ignored the instruction until we eventually muted the voice – I hate to be told what to do!

Another sign suggested that we’d turn left to the Park, but the road straight ahead looked appealing too and this is where we went for some 20 miles until the road ‘ran out’ (unmaintained road sign, seemingly several years old).

Our first stop here (S2528) provided images of four more Sclerocacti, medium sized and in bud, without providing a clue to their identity, at least not on my knowledge levels. I’m calling the omni-present Opuntia O/ polyacantha for now, as this is a very variable species and will do until I get home to check in more detail and with the help of Joe Shaw’s Opuntia website. Very nice peaceful surroundings.

The area continued to have potential for Pedios and Scleros but S2529 and S2530 had neither, just struggling O. polyacantha and, at S2531, a large clump of Echinocereus triglochidiatus in flower, spotted by Angie from the car.

S2532 is for a potential talk entitled ‘Things that Ian never saw’ as he had never taken the time and US$ 7 admission for a car with up to 8 people to have a look around Goblin Valley State Park. Tourists to the US might take note that State Parks are not included on the National Parks Annual Pass. It was very windy and overcast here but Nature’s sculptures looked great anyway. The goblin-like hoodoos here are unique and fun for all ages. They bear no relation to the Goblin’s Teasmade , a British invention that was highly popular in the 1960s and seventies. combines an alarm clock and electric kettle which automatically boils water and adds it to a teapot at a specified time and it’s invention, credited to Samuel Rowbottom in 1891. Back to reality, as you can tell I read up some detail on Wikipedia while we go along.

With the Goblins done we returned to Green River to check out the latest information received from Ian regarding the rugby sized Sclerocacti that he had found behind the Super 8 Motel here, in 2011. Yesterday’s extensive search here gave us only struggling O. polyacantha. This morning’s email added more detail so we had another extensive search. This is a good example of how difficult it is to find quite sizeable plants from a pretty detailed description:

‘Have a wander around on the hills directly beside the Super 8 car park heading towards the tower and the railway and you should find some nice parvs on the gently rolling slopes. They were facing the railway/Interstate on low rounded slopes perhaps 600m from the hotel – as said perhaps 40 degrees to the left of the big pylon thing.’

Today’s 45 minute search event ultimately  provided three grapefruit sized plants in bud, found by Cliff and also photographed by Angie – I was at the other extreme end of the area and did not hear their shouts. It really was not a huge area and we felt that with Ian’s instructions we should have found more plants and more easily, but things are very restricted with Scleros. And their population size can change dramatically in the course of a year. A bit of luck is essential!

Tuesday, 24 April 2012 – Green River to Arches National Park and back

Just before we left this morning, I received an email from Ian, suggesting ‘Have a wander around on the hills directly beside the Super 8 (in Green River) car park, heading towards the tower and the railway and you should find some nice parvs on the gently rolling slopes. As most of you will know, I always do as I’m told and so ended up at said location, S2524, where the three of us did the best we could to spread out. Some 45 minutes later we had spotted the odd Opuntia polyacantha ssp, but no Scleros. Sclerocactus populations tend to be quite local and can seemingly disappear without trace after a borer beetle attack. Fortunately, the seed bank in the soil will allow the population to regenerate once the borer beetle has died or moved on to pastures new. But usually the empty shells of the Scleros can be found but here there was not a trace.

We decided to have a day at Arches National Park, and SatNav sent us the shortest route, via old Highway 50 that runs parrallel to Interstate 70. As we entered Hwy 50 a sign warned us thaqt this was now an unmaintained route – i.e. many pot holes, just like in England. The advantage of this road over I-70 was that here we could pull off at will, which we did, S2525. Again, this time after some 20 minutes in the heat, we gave up having found only O. polyacantha ssp I’ll need a new category of cactus stop: ‘No Cacti Except Opuntia’, and this was one of those.

We had resigned to the remainder of today being a sightseeing day, with all images from Arches scenery filed as S2526 and any plant images for that location filed as S2527. The plant images include Yucca baccata, Opuntia polyacantha ssp., and Echinocereus triglochidiata (again in flower). Then, as we drove away from the Deloicate Arch view pointy car park, I spotted a large barrel cactus in flower, behind a shrub, right by the side of the road. But we had a convoy of cars behind and could not pull over. A mile later we could turn into another car park to turn round and head back to the car park that we had just left. I raced ahead, ignoring any other cacti that might be around.  Sure enough, this was Slecrocactus parviflorus, a true giant almost 50 cm (18″) tall and with three flowers fully opened and another two opening with many buds left. I looked back for Cliff and Angie who had only covered half the distance from the car park but seemed to have found their own plants as they were busy taking pictures. Their plants were much smaller but also in flower and we swapped spots. I would take more pictures here of the smaller plants then walk back to the car and set off to where the monster plant was where I would pick them up. Mission accomplished!

With a very satisfied warm feeling (or was it the outside temperature of 95F that made me glow?) we drove back to green River where we had reservations at the Super8 Motel. Or so we thought. It turned out that our paid for booking was at the Super 8 in Green River, Wyoming, 258 miles drive away. The letters WY instead of UT behind the address was the clue that had passed me by. Fortunately the duty manager was able to ring the Wyoming Super8 and arrange a complete refund provided that we’d stay the same time (two nights) in the Utah one – no problem. For a moment I had feared that I had lost US$ 256! Lesson learned: don’t make your on-line bookings while finishing the last bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon.

A great end to a great day was provided by a steak and a couple of glasses of the local Porter beer at Ray’s Tavern, where tonight they were out of apple pie and ice cream, but where they promised to have some in for our last meal there, tomorrow.

Monday, 23 April 2012 – Torrey to Green River

We made the Goosenecks section in the Capitol Reef National Park our first stop of the day – S2520. Here the Freemonte River wound its way  nearly 250 m. (800 ft) below us. Spectacular views but no cacti photographed here. Some ancient tortured pine trees proved interesting subjects for our cameras.

Having seen Sclerocactus in advanced bud near the Capitol Reef National Park Visitors Center yesterday, we dropped by again on our way to Green River to see if the buds had opened – this time recorded as S2518b. Rain was forecast for later this afternoon and perhaps the majority of the plants were waiting for the extra water to open their flowers. One flower, on an offset at the base of one plant had opened and for a while that seemed to be the best that we would get, until Cliff spotted a plant with two flowers open as we were heading back to the car. We called Angie back as she was already at the Visitors Center but her arrival took a bit longer as she ran into a crested Sclerocactus on the way! Yesterday I called the Sclero S. wrightiae. Sclerocactus wrightiae is said to display considerable morphologic variation, presumably due to introgression with S. parviflorus; however, it can usually be recognized by its noticeably fragrant flowers with pink to white tepals, and magenta staminal filaments. ‘Our’ plant in flower had a yellow stamen and although Cliff had announced that he would sniff the flowers, I did not see him do so, or I would have taken a picture to be able to list him among the potential pollinators. Although S. wrightiae generally has smaller stems and flowers and shorter spines than S. parviflorus, there are many exceptions. So what were the plants that we had photographed? Just to confuce matters, the Park’s plant list suggests S. whipplei as another candidate.

That would have made it a very good stop, but it was further enhanced by Cliff spotting a Pediocactus simpsonii on the hill. Had this hillside been seeded by National Park staff? The Rangers denied this, everything that we had seen had been put there by Mother Nature. I took some more pictures of the Echinocereus triglochidiatus, their bright flowers are bound to get a Wow! at future presentations in the UK.

We had GPS co-ordinates for a Pediocactus winkleri on the way to Green River. This involved turrning off Highway 24 and as we had plenty of time, we decided on anothe scenic stop to see what was here – S2521 – just Opuntia polyacantha found.

[Mapping this spot onto Google Earth shows that I had keyed in the wrong coordinates for the P. winkleri location, explaining why we did not find it here.]

S2522 was the supposed P. winkleri stop. I double checked the coordinates and again the GPS suggested that we’d take a .2 mile hike up a hill. Cliff and I spread out as best as two people could – Angie stayed around the car – the temperature was in the mid 30’s C (mid 90s F). We could see a heavy storm depositing snow on the hills below it. No cacti were found, presumably because the rains had not yet woken the plants that were still hiding below the soil or between grasses and stones.

We made one more stop S2523 and found more Sclerocactus – they looked identical to plants found in the Capitol Reef NP Stop 2518a/b. Echinocereus triglochidiatus and the usual white spined Opuntia (polyacantha?) were also around.

We had not booked accommodation at Green River until tomorrow night, but found rooms at the Budget Inn in Green River – clean and safe, if a little noisy right along Highway 191.

Sunday, 22 April 2012 – around Torrey

Frustration, as on completion of tonight’s blog I find that somehow the first part of my report has been lost. It is also missing from the autodraft version, so here we go again! grrrrrr!!!!

We had earmarked two more Pediocactus locations for our morning’s pleasure, one some 10 miles from the hotel, the other a bit farther afield. We past the first location and decided to take a look there on the way back. Soon we became suspicious of our SatNav’s instructions. Earlier, Google Maps had suggested that the total mileage for the day would be 129 miles, while SatNav suggested that the distance to our first stop would be 155 miles. We suspect that SatNav only used US Highways, ignoring National Forest roads that would cut through the Fish Lake National Forest area. Switching the SatNav to ‘off road’ mode (i.e. as the crow flies) suggested that our spot was only 16 miles away. However we could see the significant hill that had to be crossed. We followed our instincts and disobeyed SatNav’s pleas to turn around and follow its much longer route. However, without detailed maps and SatNav showing an increasing distance on its route, decisions had to be made.

We followed Cliff’s suggestion to take a look around for plants where we were (S2515). I was not too sure as for the last hour we had not spotted any cactus in the terrain alongside the road – usually we would see Opuntia and Echinocereus from the road. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so after five minutes from parking the car, Cliff announced his first Pedio find of the day and I was left to eat humble pie. This turned out to be quite a densely populated area. Just as we repeated our observation that no other cacti occurred her, two small opuntiods were found. Does Corynopuntia occur here? Which one? What does it look like? [Note to self to check up the literature when I get home]

As we resumed our journey, we suggested that if Pedios occur on such unlikely locations, it probably occurred everywhere that we had been today and everywhere that we were going. To prove a point, Cliff pulled over at the next convenient lay by and we stomped up the hill overlooking a water reservoir – if possible this was an even less likely Pedio location – S2516. Near the top of the hill we decided that perhaps this area was not suited, but were surprised soon after, by a plant (Pediocactus simpsonii again) in flower hidden among the grass. Soon we found a few more, but only plants in flower – the others remained too well hidden.

Satisfied with our efforts we headed back to Torrey, passing the spot that we had earmarked earlier for a more detailed look S2517. On arrival at the coordinates SatNav was again confused, sending us 800 m on a non-existent track i.e. we ended climbing quite s steep hill on foot, although literature and our experience suggested that Pediocactus prefer a fairly level ground. On arrival at the top of our hill, SatNav wanted us to continue for another hundred meters,  down a hill, now at a slope too steep to consider without special equipment. Disappointed, we made our way back to the car, but with the light now in a different direction, even though I was walking over my original footsteps there was another P. simpsonii in flower. And another and another.

With our cactus quota for the day now satisfied, we headed for the National Park where I recorded two stops: S2518 for plants photographed in the National Park and S2519 for the tremendous scenery that is Capitol Reef NP. We found quite a dense stand of Sclerocactus wrightiae (not to be confused with S. uncinatus ssp wrightii) where most of the plants were in advanced bud. As we need to drive past the park visitor’s center again tomorrow morning, we’ll pop in to see if the buds have now opened.

Another cactus found, this time in full flower was Echinocereus triglochidiatus, the Claret Cup Cactus. The trick was to find the best cactus with the option to photograph it with the park’s scenery in the background. Not as easy as you might think,  considering the presence of telephone / electricity cables to spoil the view. Still, I think I managed to catch a few that will find their way into talks later this year.

We celebrated another successful day with a couple of Margaritas with dinner.

Saturday, 21 April 2012 – Kanab to Torrey

We started with another Pediocactus stop – S2509 – and found P. simpsonii almost immediately. Coryphantha vivipara again tried to confuse us but we’re wise now to checking for the groove along the tubercle – even if this is on enlarged images on the laptop back in the Hotel, my eyes are not up to checking this detail in the field, unless I get down on my knees (on gravely soils) and pull the plants to bits. The Coryphantha tend to be larger and tend to clump more, but of course that does not solve the problem for young plants of Coryphantha compared to mature P. simpsonii. It helps when plants are in flower – a) we have not found any Coryphantha in flower yet and b) Pedio flowers seen to date are quite characteristic with rounded petals. Remnants of one nibbled-at Opuntia was the only other evidence of cacti presence.

From now on, the day was unashamedly tourist as Scenic Byway 12 through the Dixie National Forest first entered Red Rock (S2510 – no cacti) before we took the turning to Bryce Canyon National Park, an absolute ‘must see’. I arranged my images into three stops here (S2511 – Sunrise Point, S2512 – Bryce Point and S2513 – Bryce to Boulder,UT). Although it was a bright sunny day and we were walking around in T-shirts, there was still plenty of snow around. This was particularly welcome at Bryce Point where Angie and I walked 20 minutes down a track below the rim, to be amongst the hoodoos. The 40 minute up-hill walk was HOT and it was good to pick up a handful of snow occasionally to cool down – always aware of the Frank Zappa advice ‘ Don’t Eat The Yellow Snow’! All stops without a cactus in sight – we did look for them!

S2514  was another ‘no cactus’ stop as the road took us through hills covered in aspen – yet another aspect of this amazing scenic area.

Just one cactus stop today – must do better!

Friday, 20 April 2012 – around Kanab – to Zion and back

Although I had been in this area in 1997, we had somehow missed out on Zion National Park. Today I would make up for that omission.

As we drove to Zion, we passed a sign to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. Why not take a look – we had plenty of time. There was an impressive coloured hillside to our left and we followed the first track towards it to take some pictures (S2507). As soon as we stepped out of the car, it became clear that the main purpose of this area was to allow people to tear up the countryside on scrambler bikes and ATV ‘doom buggies’. The usual tranquil peace and quiet usually found in parks was disrupted by the continuous sound of these bikes buzzing up and down the sand dunes like angry wasps. 9 images, including one of the local Yucca sp. and we had seen enough. We drove on to the official entrance in case there was more to this park, but learned that State Parks (or at least this one) was not covered by the annual pass that we had bought for the parks we hoped to visit was not valid here. The Ranger found it difficult to believe that we did not want to pay the admission and eventually allowed us to turn round on the Park’s premises.

The other stop of the day – S2508 – covers all images taken at Zion, mainly taken from the car as Cliff drove us through the impressive scenery, or from the many stops on lay-byes and later from the shuttle bus as it took us on the scenic route through the park. Unfortunately there were just 9 stop points where you could get off, take some pictures than jump on to the next shuttle bus along (if there was space). Pictures of the local Opuntia prevented this from being a ‘No Cactus Stop’. Right at our last stop in the park, Opuntia basilaris also showed up. Very enjoyable none the less.

Thursday, 19 April 2012 – Marble Canyon to Kanab

Over breakfast, Charlie kindly pointed out that Kanab is pronounced Knab, but not like knee, where the k is silent. Confused? Breakfast at Lees Ferry Lodge can have that effect in the nicest possible way. Eunice rang to say that she had arrived home safely and to enquire after Angie’s shoulder after the chiropractor treatment – some improvement but full recovery will take a while.

Todays stops were:

S2501: This was along a track off Hwy 89-A and this time it took only three minutes from parking the car to finding our first Pedio, P. paradinei. I forgot to mention yesterday that P. bradyi had already finished flowering but had not yet set ripe seed. We assume that we were just too early and that the slow reduction in its numbers reported in the monitoring paper is not due to some other factor, such as a demise in the natural pollinator. We have learned by now that not all small globular cacti found in our search for Pedio are in fact members of that genus. A close inspection of the tubercles revealed a groove from the areole towards the axil, a feature found in Coryphantha but not in Pediocactus. The Coryphantha is likely to be C. vivipara, a highly variable species with a number of subspecies. It took another half an hour to find our first P. paradinei in flower, with only the flower visible above the gravely soil, just like Thelocephala in Chile.

It seemed that flowering plants had longer, softer spination than the smaller plants not seen in flower. The latter looked similar to P. bradyi. So, does P. paradinei have distinct juvenile and mature spination? [note to self to check this out in literature when I get home]. C. vivipara was here, forming multiheaded clumps and generally larger in appearance. Also seen Opuntia polyacantha, a Cylindropuntia sp. and Echinocereus engelmannii. 

As we drove back towards the 89-A we commented that there did not seem to be any reason why the Pedio should not grow all along the track, so to prove the point, we had a quick look around at S2502 which was covered with white daisy-like flowers. And sure enough, before too long we had found P. paradinei here as well.

S2503 was a stop at a scenic view spot, with the Antilope Trails Vendors Association displaying more Navajo pottery and jewelry. I might have to get a trailor for the pottery purchases!

The next set of coordinates suggested for Pediocactus surprised us. S2504 was in a forest setting rather than in open fields as the genus name implies. After being confused by some C. vivipara, we did find P. paradinei as well and here too we saw plantys in flower.

S2505 was for a location near Fredonia where P. sileri had been seen. Despite over an hour’s worth of searching (3 ‘man hours’, considering that there were three of us) we failed to find any Pediocactus. Were we in the right place? Coordinates were checked and double checked, but I might have written them down incorrectly while collecting data, or a transcription error at source can easily take you to the wrong place. [Since arriving home I have mapped the Stop data onto Google Earth and confirm that we were in the right place].

It seems that this area was used as a recreation area for young adults – plenty of broken beer bottles and spent shot gun cartridges plus dumped fridges that had been used for target practice plus tyre marks in unusually steep places suggesting that scrambler bikes had been here to tear up the ground. Or was it our unfamiliarity with the plants, rarely seen in cultivation in Europe, unless grafted? We photographed every cactus seen and have since identified them as Escobaria vivipara and Echinocereus engelmannii.

We had more luck at S2506 in more than one way. First of all we found small cacti that were clearly not those seen at the previous stop. They seemed quite abundant, although we did not stay too long. The reason for this was that we found a sign indicating that we were on State Land Trust terrain with a warning that trespassers would be prosecuted and that entry was only possible with written permission. Too late to scribble a note to ourselves granting us permission to enter? Anyway, P. sileri got a tick on my ‘plants seen in habitat’ checklist.