This is one of my favorite places on earth: Organ Pipes National Monument. I’ve camped here two or three times over the years, first in a motorhome in the main campground, and this time around I stayed in the smaller and more primitive Alamo Canyon campground, from which you can access the Alamo Canyon hiking trail.

The downside of Organ Pipes is that dispersed camping isn’t allowed. You have to stay in an organized, pay campground. Given the number of people who stay here though, I expect the non-dispersed camping policy keeps the other portions of the monument in better shape for hiking and sight-seeing.

It was during the earlier trip that I had my one-and-only encounter with an illegal immigrant. I was riding my trike down Puerto Blanco Drive toward Dripping Springs. I know Puerto Blanco Drive sounds like a lovely suburban street lined with expensive villas, but it’s actually a dirt road that goes back into the bowels of nowhere. In fact, now that I’m looking at it on Google Maps I’m wondering how on earth I decided I could ride around it in a big loop, circumnavigating the campground and visitor’s center and connecting with the main road on either end. It actually appears to dead-end out in the desert.

I’d been riding for probably over three hours, making much less headway than I thought I would, when I ran into a man with a black one-gallon bottle walking along the “road” (basically a track at that point). He pushed me up a hill, which was very kind of him, and asked me for water, which I foolishly did not have. I’d had some when I started on the ride, but I had thought the whole ride would take me maybe three hours and I’d only brought two water bottles. Most of that was already consumed. My Spanish had deteriorated from passable to almost-non-existent over the years so we had trouble communicating, but I know he wanted to find out where the water was because he was in a bad way. I tried and failed to communicate where he should go and how far it was (very far…there was no water anywhere close by). I then rode on until I reached some point of interest where there was an emergency call station, and pushed the “I'm an idiot; I got myself into trouble here; please come and rescue me” button. A ranger came out and graciously gave me a ride back to the main road. Boy was I glad I hadn’t tried to ride it! I would never have gotten there, or if I had, it would’ve been midnight. I remember it was long and there were areas I could never have ridden across. So maybe the road actually DOES dead-end in the desert and the ranger was driving over a not-exactly-road.

I told the ranger about the border-crosser, and someone else came out to pick him up as well. I saw him after they picked him up and he kissed his hand at me. I’m sorry he probably had a not-very-fun time afterward, but I’m glad he was safe instead of dying of thirst in the desert.

This time around I had no such adventures, just a nice hike into Alamo Canyon. These photos taken near the campground show what the area is like…fields of saguaros and imposing rusty red rocks.

Alamo Canyon in Organ Pipes National Monument 11/22

California Coast 3/23

Cabeza Prieta 11/22