The thorny old men

Saguaro National Park, Arizona, USA

I had seen these beautiful cactii only in pictures and gotten the scale completely wrong!!

I had imagined these old men of the desert to be only about 6′-7′ tall at the most. Towering more than 30′-40′ and standing tall on the canyon slopes, they start to appear like men with outstretched arms dancing in the desert winds to a beat of their own.

Dark Silehouttes with a fuzzy white glowing outline of thorns and an ecosystem in it’s own, they provide a cool shelter to the native birds in their hollowed out arms. Poker faced, thorny, dusty and dry, yet beautiful and a wonder of nature and time, they stand tall in the most adverse and hostile of climates and endure it for more than 150 years. They are a charm to watch in numbers and a must see on the trails through the Sonoran Desert.