I sacrificed a recent crisp, sunny morning to a five-mile scramble around the new Sonoita Creek State Natural Area and I’ve got no regrets save not going farther, maybe packing in and spending a big-moon night wondering if the breeze-blown ocotillo was reaching for something it can never reach.

The preserve, just outside Patagonia Lake State Park in Santa Cruz County, has about 20 miles of trails on some 9,000 acres, so it’s easy to cobble together a representative loop to fit your mood. Like so much of Southern Arizona, the Natural Area, located in a transitional zone between the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts, has a deceptively varied ecosystem, with seven distinct vegetative communities dominated by semi-desert grass lands and riparian forests.

I started hiking across the scrubby plain, through a veritable ocotillo forest, on the Sonoita Creek Trail, which is well-marked with cairns (small rock piles). It quickly drops into the riparian zone, though Sonoita Creek is dry in many places at this time of year. Shady cottonwoods and bare white sycamores mix with mesquite and scrub oak, and birders will want to take the short Cottonwood Loop which circles an especially verdant stretch of the creek and provides probably the best chance to see some of the Mexican avian species that are known to haunt the area, including the elegant trogon. The turnoff for the short loop is well marked with a sign.

About a mile or so in you’ll see the huge stone remnants of the New Mexico and Arizona railroad that once ran along Sonoita Creek from Patagonia to Rio Rico. Here the creek is flowing, but it’s easy to cross by stepping on some well-placed stones. A cow skull perched atop a cairn marks the trail, and you can still hear the trains far across the plain to the southwest.

I passed the State Land boundary and ascended onto the Coal Mine Spring Trail, which rises onto the plain, dominated by ocotillo and mesquite. You can see the Santa Ritas and the white-dot observatory on top of Mount Hopkins far to the northeast. After crossing the plain, I turned south onto the Vista Trail and walked southwest along a fence for about a mile or so, then the trail drops back down into the riparian area where I picked up the Sonoita Creek Trail again and retraced my route back to the trailhead/parking lot.

It’s an easy loop-tour of the Natural Area’s major biomes, and it would be perfect for organized families with children 10 or older. A picnic lunch down by where the creek flows, on the sandy banks with plenty of round smooth rocks for skipping, seems like an ideal way to while away a temperate Southwestern winter Saturday.

Getting There:

Take I-19 South, exit at Grand Avenue, then catch Highway 82 to Patagonia. Ten miles on look for the entrance to Patagonia Lake State Park on the left. Drive four miles to the lake entrance and fee station. It costs $7 to get into the park. Once in, follow the signs to the office and visitor center, where a park employee will issue you a permit. Then drive back to the entrance and follow signs to the Sonoita Creek State Natural Area’s parking lot and trailheads. Make sure you pick up a map at the visitor center.

For more information about the Sonoita Creek State Natural Area call 520-287-2791

Originally published in the Sahuarita Sun