November 1, 2002: Arizona Trip Day 7
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Today and tomorrow will be the last two days of our Arizona trip. Today, we'll break camp in The Superstitions and head southeast towards the town of Superior and the Boyce Thompson Arboretum. Then, we'll head south towards Tucson to visit Arizona's Catalina State Park. Then we'll head for home, staying near Las Cruces, New Mexico, for the night.

Breaking Camp at the Superstition Mountains

After a good night's sleep, we awoke with the sun (literally); it was just coming up behind The Superstitions as we emerged from the tent.

Sunrise Over The Superstitions

The sunrise over the Superstition Mountains was very beautiful, especially as the sun began to peek over the peak. Click on the thumbnails below to see a couple of additional pictures we took of the sunrise:

By the time we'd gotten up and showered and packed stuff up, the sun was fully up and beginning to dry off the tent. At this time of year, there is a lot of morning dew and we sometimes have to wait for things to dry before we can head out. We did move the tent and tarp to the paved parking area for the campsite to let them dry better. After about an hour, everything was dry and put away and we headed out towards Superior, Arizona.

We got one last good look at The Superstitions as we headed out.

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Visiting the Boyce Thompson Arboretum

We pulled away from the Superstition Mountains about ten in the morning on our way to Boyce Arboretum.

We took the highway back towards Phoenix- Arizona Highway 88. Then we turned left onto US 60 and took that all the way towards Superior, Arizona. About ten miles before Superior, we saw the signs for the Boyce Arboretum and we turned in.

Before we take our tour, you might be interested in a capsule history of the place. Colonel William Boyce Thompson was born May 13, 1869 in Alder Gulch, Montana. After a desultory childhood, he was sent East New Hampshire's Exeter Academy where he gained a good deal of maturity. He matriculated to the Columbia University School of Mines is where he found his greatest interest. He returned to Montana to a wide variety of mining ventures, married and settled in Butte. He went back and forth to New York City, eventually making a fortune with mining investments by 1906. The next year, he purchased the Magma Mine, in Superior, Arizona, and began work on a Yonkers, New York, estate. There he was developing a love of horticulture.

By 1909, forty and a multi-millionaire, he began his far reaching philanthropic endeavors. He began to be active in politics, and in 1917, he was sent by the Wilson administration to Russia to attempt to ensure that Russia would stay in the war. In that he was successful. He tired of politics, and began to find his greatest interest in a new home he was building in the Arizona hills, near the town of Superior. This is where he built his Picket Post house. When a friend asked him how much land he owned around Picket Post House, he replied, "I own it all as far as the eye can see, because I love it." The fact was that the first years, he owned none at all. The land was part of the Crook National Forest and the house was built under a permit of the Forest Service. By purchasing land in northern Arizona that the Service wanted he was able to make an exchange that which gave him ownership of over four hundred acres. Thompson is reported to have been happier in his Picket Post home than ever before.

Constructing the Garden House The Boyce Arboretum is Opened

He soon picked University of Arizona professor Franklin J. Crider to establish the Boyce Thompson Southwest Arboretum on a portion of the 400 acres. The initial mission of the Arboretum was to study the plants of desert countries and to make the results available to the public. After suffering a stroke in October 1925, his left arm and leg were paralyzed. He had driven himself too hard. He had dreamed of a rich old age, when he would have time to enjoy his home, his garden and his grandchildren. His strength and vitality never returned. After the Stock Market crash in October 1929, he was convinced it was a prelude to a greater disaster. He sold stocks heavily and from the hundreds of millions he had collected in the three previous decades, he was down to his last 100 million in early 1930. He died from pneumonia in June 1930. But he left a large legacy, part of which we'll be touring today.

The Boyce Thompson Arboretum is located about ten miles southwest of Superior, Arizona, and many of the buildings that Boyce built originally are still in use- including his Picket Post House.

An Aerial View of the Boyce Thompson Arboretum

The main trail through the arboretum is about a mile and a half long, and goes from the entry area (garden house, demonstration gardens and administration) through various horticultural areas and all the way to the Picket Post House at the east side of the property.

We paid our admission fee and planned to spend a couple of hours here this morning, trying to see all that we could. There is an arboretum diagram below and you can use it to follow our progress.

Our first stop was the Smith Interpretive Center. Built in 1925 of locally quarried stone, it is on the National Register of Historic Places. The building served as the original visitor's center until the present one was built, and has two greenhouses attached to either side. One greenhouse highlights cacti from around the world, and the other showcases succulent plants in other plant families.

The Heritage Rose Garden at the arboretum is an idyllic spot for relaxation and rest. Filled with fragrant blossoms, it is home to a large selection of Heritage roses, also Antique or Old Garden Roses, one of the most popular strains of roses during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As well, the garden is home to clones of the famous Tombstone Rose and The Yellow Rose of Texas.

The 2.5-acre Demonstration Garden is a colorful introduction to various plants which are situated in a functional landscape, one that's complete with patios, walls, shade structures, vine arbors, walkways and the soothing sound of trickling water and charismatic rockwork. There were interpretive signs to help guide gardeners through the processes of choosing a site, basic landscape design and plant selection. The Demonstration Garden also introduces important concepts such as water harvesting, how to build and maintain a backyard mini-oasis and the challenges that desert dwellers face with salinity. The Dallas Arboretum has a similar section that has advice on which plants do best in which locales.

Next, we walked through an area devoted to Australian plants and trees; there was a small eucalyptus forest among other plants native to the Australian continent. You can have a closeup look at one of these amazing trees here. There was also an example of a tree you don't see very often- the ironwood tree.

As promised, here is the garden map showing the route that we took through the various horticultural areas. The Picket Post house is at the east end of the gardens:

The Herb Garden was the next stop. The Clevenger House is located here. It is a building which was lived in as a ranch house before Boyce Thompson bought the property. Within the fence you saw many beds of native and southern European herb plantings. The planting beds were divided into specific use areas: culinary, medicinals, cosmetics, insect repellants, etc.

The high trail along Queen Creek Canyon is one of the most scenic vistas in the park. It offers views of Magma Ridge and the beautiful riparian area of Queen Creek Canyon. We were out in the sunshine here, and relatively high up, so we could see many of the other areas of the arboretum from this trail.

The trail sloped down a bit, and we found ourselves at the Picket Post House.

Picket Post House

The Picket Post House was, of course, the mansion that Boyce Thompson built, the gardens of which became the Arboretum.

Construction on Picket Post House began in 1923, took 14 months to complete and cost $20,000 by some estimates (about $300K in 2012 dollars). This may not sound like much, but Thompson got a lot for his money. When the Arboretum was founded in 1928, Thompson donated the house and the surrounding property to it. The Colonel passed away a few years later, in 1930. Picket Post Mansion was sold in 1946 to Walter and Ida Franklin of Globe for $40,000 when it became a financial burden to the Arboretum; the Franklins operated it as a bed and breakfast. One of its more famous visitors was Admiral Richard Byrd's wife and two daughters in 1947, who stayed there while the Admiral was away on an expedition to the South Pole. Again, due to the cost of maintaining the Picket Post House, it changed hands again and was eventually was acquired by Rick and Tina Rose. Tours were given during their ownership. In 2008, the Arizona State Parks purchased the property to make the Arboretum whole once again.

The Picket Post House is still something of a financial drain, and so separate tours are available periodically for $20/person. We were not there on a day when tours were being given.

The view of the house that you see at right is from the side opposite the one we could see from the trail through the Arboretum.

If you would like to see a couple of additional pictures of the house, just click on the thumbnails below:

The next stop was the one Fred had been waiting for- the Cactus Garden.

In the Cactus Garden

The cactus garden was very nice, and even though I am not a "plant" person, I very much enjoyed wandering around.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

Fred wanted to spend a good deal of time in the three-acre cactus garden. It featured cacti and other succulents from all over the Western Hemisphere. The garden, set on the north side of Magma Ridge offered several winding trails to allow us to enjoy the beauty of the cacti and succulents as well as the surrounding scenery. Fred and I both took a lot of pictures here in the cactus garden, and I have put them into a slideshow.

To view the slideshow, just click on the image at right and I will open the slideshow in a new window. In the slideshow, you can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to the next, and the index numbers in the upper left of each image will tell you where you are in the series. When you are finished looking at the pictures, just close the popup window.

We continued around the Arboretum path until we found ourselves back at the Smith Interpretive Center where we went in to take a look around for a while. We'd enjoyed our visit here; at about 2PM we headed off for our last stop on our Arizona trip- Catalina State Park. Just before we left the grounds, though, Fred asked me to stop the RAV4 so he could take a picture of the huge cholla right next to the exit.

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Hiking in Arizona's Catalina State Park

Leaving The Boyce Arboretum, we headed south towards Tucson.

We took Highway 88 back towards Phoenix and then went south on Highway 79. This was pretty desolate area. When Highway 77 joined up we continued south to the entrance to Catalina State Park.

As you can see in the aerial view below, Catalina SP is east of the developed area of North Tucson:

We found the State Park with no problem, and arrived there about two-thirty in the afternoon. It had clouded over this afternoon, so it was a very pleasant temperature for the hike.

In the Hills at Catalina State Park

Catalina State Park is adjacent to Coronado National Forest on the western slopes of the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson. Its average elevation is 3,000 feet, but that varies dramatically with high ridges and low creek beds. The 5500-acre park is administered by the Arizona State Parks and the U.S. Forest Service.

There is evidence that the park and surrounding area have been continuously occupied since about 5000 BCE by the Hohokam people. The Romero Ruin still contains pueblos built of rock and adobe, as well as a Mesoamerican ballcourt. The earliest date the pueblo would have been lived in is between 550–600 CE. The site was widely utilized for nearly 400 years; 1000–1450 CE. The namesake of this ruin, Francisco Romero, built a ranch on the site in the 19th Century, and most likely used stone from the previous Hohokam structure to build his house- and fortifications to protect him from the Apache.

Catalina State Park sits at the base of the majestic Santa Catalina Mountains. The park is a haven for desert plants and wildlife and nearly 5,000 saguaros. The foothills, canyons and streams invites camping, picnicking and bird watching — more than 150 species of birds call the park home. The park provides miles of equestrian, birding, hiking, and biking trails which wind through the park and into the Coronado National Forest at elevations near 3,000 feet.

We had found descriptions of a good hiking trail that would lead from the parking area five+ miles round-trip up into the mountains to a series of small streams, a spring and, it was said, a waterfall if there has been enough rain.

We are going to park at the far end of the park road, and then take the Romero Canyon Trail to the Romero Pools, circle around them, and return.

So we started off from the trailhead, over level ground for just a while, and then the trail climbed up into the rocky hills. The trail was easy going; it was well-worn and not difficult to follow. The trail passed all kinds of cacti as we rose into the hills. Once we got up onto the ridgeline, there were pretty impressive views west towards North Tucson.

This was really an enjoyable hike; we passed maybe five or six other hikers on our way to the Romero Pools.

If you will click on the thumbnails at left, you can see some more of the pictures we took along our hike up to the Romero Pools. You can see the different kinds of cacti and desert plants that lined the trail, and occasionally see one of the other hikers that we passed.

It was a little over two and a half miles until we climbed over a rocky ridge and down into the sheltered area where we found the Romero Pools.

Me at the Romero Pools

The Romero Pools are partially spring-fed, but they get most of their water from rains. A lot of the descriptions of this hike say that if you take it a while after a rainy period, then the pools and streams and waterfalls will be very active, and the destination becomes a great place to swim. Even though we didn't encounter this level of water activity, the area was still a pleasant and interesting hiking destination.

In the picture Fred took of me at Romero Pools, you can see where there would be a waterfall after a rain. At some of the pools, those that are fairly permanent, you could find a little oasis where greenery could take advantage of the water source. This was quite a contrast to the desert plants that grew out in the arid landscape of the trail.

Click on the thumbnails below to see some of the pictures we took while we were here at the Romero Pools:

This was certainly not one of the longest hikes we'd taken, nor did it get as high as some, but it had a beauty all its own.

Along about four we reluctantly headed back to the parking area. If you click on the thumbnails at left, you can see the last few pictures we took as we were walking back to the trailhead. At this time of year, one begins to lose the light about five-thirty or six, and it would take us an hour to get back. It was a really fun hike- and a great trip, for this was our last stop before heading back to Dallas.

Getting home really doesn't merit much narrative. We just continued on Highway 77 south through Tucson to I-10 and then headed east. We had dinner in Las Cruces and spent the night near El Paso, and then completed the rest of the drive home on Sunday, arriving back in Dallas in late afternoon. Fred had to work the next day and wanted to pick up his mail and stuff, so he headed on home.

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	November 1, 2002: Arizona Trip Day 7
	Return to the Index for Our Arizona Trip