I went hiking with Becca this last time I was down there in Sabino Canyon. We've gone there before but this time we did a new hike for us called Blackett's Ridge. Its a difficult hike with a round trip of 6.2 miles. Here's a panoramic picture from the top.
On the way up we stopped to take a picture of ourselves. It was on a nice flat
rock overlooking Tucson. After we took the picture I went to push myself up with my left hand and pushed it onto a teddy bear cholla, seen here. As you can see from a distance it looks soft and fluffy, thus the name. Well, trust me, its alternative name, the Jumping Cholla, is more descriptive because this innocent enough looking plant drops small cactus balls which are full of sharp needles. Those needles lodged themselves into my fingers and did not want to let go. We couldn't get the cactus off my hand until another hiker took two rocks, sandwiched the cactus between the rocks and ripped it away, leaving some of the needles still sticking in my fingers which we then had to pull out individually.
They hurt. Just to make me feel better Becca took a picture of the offending cactus segment for posterity's sake.When we got home we looked up the cactus to find the name. On a later search I found this last picture which is an electron microscope picture of a teddy bear cholla needle showing thousands of little barbs on each needle which made t
hem harder and more painful to pull out.So, the moral of the story is if you go hiking in a desert, which I highly recommend, please for the love of God make sure to look where you put your hands because there can be some painful consequences if you don't. :)
