Saguaro National Park, pronounced suh-waa-row, is named for the large Saguaro cacti that grow in abundance. The park has two districts separated by the city of Tucson. Each district has a visitor center and a scenic loop with viewing pullouts and picnic areas. Each district also offers many hiking trails but dogs are only allowed on a few of them.
Saguaro West
We arrived at Saguaro National Park early on a Saturday morning and started at the Red Hills Visitor Center in Saguaro West. Unlike most national parks there is no entrance gate with an attendant verifying and selling park passes. Instead, you are expected to go to the visitor center to show your pass or purchase one.
At the visitor center, we confirmed that dogs are allowed on only two hiking trails in Saguaro West: the Desert Discovery Nature Trail and the Golden Gate Trail.
Desert Discovery Nature Trail
The Desert Discovery Nature Trail is a .5 mile, wheelchair accessible paved trail near the visitor center. It has a relatively small parking lot and, even though we were only driving our Jeep, we couldn’t find a spot to park. We continued on to the Golden Gate Trail in hopes of returning to this one on our way back. But we never did and I have no pictures to share.
Golden Gate Trail
The Golden Gate Trail starts at the end of Golden Gate Road. We parked at the Ez-Kim-In-Zin picnic area and walked to the trailhead but there is also parking right at the trailhead. It was a little confusing because roadsigns point to the Esperanza trail but say nothing about the “Golden Gate Multi-use Trail” that we were looking for. After a little research I learned this trail is relatively new. Golden Gate Road used to extend north from the Esperanza trailhead to Picture Rocks road and dogs weren’t allowed on it. In 2019 they closed that section to vehicles and opened it to dogs. I suspect its history as a road is directly relevant to allowing dogs. It’s quite wide and void of vegetation. There’s nothing for dogs to damage and it’s less likely for dogs to surprise rattlesnakes and other wildlife. We did see several coyotes cross the trail in front of us. We instantly understood and appreciated the 6’ leash rule because our puppy, Aly, desperately wanted to play with them!
We enjoyed a beautiful, if not challenging, walk along the Golden Gate Trail. We could see hikers on the surrounding hills but our trail was flat and not much of a workout. We only saw one other person on our trail. Aly enjoyed the walk and she even learned how cacti defend themselves.
I was fascinated by the structure of the ,, which I learned about at the Visitor Center. They had a cross-section in a display but I wanted to see it in the wild. Tom enjoyed watching me try to reach my phone on a tripod to the top of a decapitated cactus. If only I were a foot taller! Instead I had to settle for a fallen cactus along the trail near the parking lot. Still pretty cool!
Cutting our visit short
Tom and I have visited many national parks over the years but this trip is the first time with a dog. It forces us to think differently and more purposefully… and to compare parks with a dog’s eye view.
For example, when we visited Petrified Forest National Park with Aly, there was nothing in the park we couldn’t see. There are only a few hiking trails and dogs are allowed on all of them. Most of the sites are quick stops along the road. We hop out of the car take a few pictures and hop back in. Dogs aren’t allowed in the buildings but we can take turns watching Aly because nothing in the buildings takes that long to see.
Saguaro is quite different. Yes, it has scenic loops where you can drive and hop out quickly to see the sites. And it has a few buildings that you can visit while taking turns watching the dog. But, unlike Petrified Forest, Saguaro has more than 175 miles of hiking trails. Only about 5 miles of those trails are accessible to dogs. To get the full park experience, Tom and I decided we’d have to return another time, after making other arrangements for Aly. So, we cut our visit to Saguaro National Park short. We returned to the visitor center, hooked up the Jeep and headed south for our next adventure!
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