Catalina State Park - Canyon Loop Trail

Author's Comments

The Catalinas do something at the end of the day that I have not seen elsewhere in the Sonoran Desert. Pusch Ridge catches the last hour of sun and goes the color of rusted iron, and the saguaros in the foreground stand black against it, and for about twenty minutes the whole landscape feels lit from two directions at once. The Canyon Loop is short by desert standards, just under three miles, and it crosses a few washes that hold water in spring after a wet winter. That water is what makes the wildflower years happen. In a good March the desert floor goes orange with poppies and the lupine comes up purple along the trail edges, and the saguaros stand over all of it like witnesses. Most years are not that year. Most years the trail is quieter and browner and still entirely worth the walk. The granite cliffs above the canyon hold their own without the wildflowers, and the saguaro forest here is dense enough that you can find compositions almost anywhere you stop. I tend to work wide for the ridge and then switch to something longer for the saguaros themselves, which reward being isolated against the cliffs rather than crowded together. Arrive before eight if you are coming on a weekend. The lot fills and the light is better early anyway. Then come back at golden hour, because that is when the place actually gives you what you came for.

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