Tucson will always hold a special place in my heart. Maybe it’s because I spent two years of my life there while attending the University of Arizona. Maybe it’s because of the Mexican food. Or maybe it’s because of the ideal climate and desert. Whichever it may be, I take a few trips to the Dirty T throughout the year. It’s always been an escape, a place that makes it feel like it’s 2018 again and I can spend the day driving around and hiking with my friend, Ethan VenJohn, a UofA geoscience graduate who now works with the state of Arizona.
Being into photography and starting my career with landscape, Tucson has provided ample opportunities to explore and capture a variety of scenes from Sonoran Desert to the forest on Mount Lemmon. Until recently, the one (or two) things that have eluded me over the years was the reptiles. More specifically, the Gila monster and the Arizona Desert Tortoise. Ethan and I have dedicated days solely to find the two rarest reptiles in the state.
We’ve hiked on and off trails, but the only time we’ve seen either was on Instagram when some lucky people happen to stumble onto one without searching. Well, that’s sort of what happened to us. Both the Gila monster and Arizona Desert Tortoise are only active during the late spring and summer months. And only then are they active (outside of their dens) for very little time. The Gila monster is said to be tucked away 98 percent of the time, while the tortoise is hidden roughly 95 percent. It wasn’t until three weeks ago when Ethan and I took a trip down, mainly for the food, but brought our cameras. We always explore the area around Saguaro National Park west, but with ominous clouds building on the east side, we opted for a new trail.
On the way we came across the Arizona Western Diamondback, soaking up heat from the asphalt on the road.
This wasn’t anything new to us, but only 200 yards onto the trail, something else was — a Gila Monster. Walking along the path, we veered off to the right, Ethan stopped and said, “Oh, my gosh.” There it was, the rarest of the desert critters, in its natural habitat. And, of course, we left our equipment in the car, so our phones had to suffice. It was a mere stroke of luck to walk off path at that very spot to stumble upon our find.
We continued further down the trail before heading back, but that experience brought us back to that same trail a week later. This time we brought our gear. We veered off at the same point, only to find another Diamondback coiled up under the bush where we had seen the Gila monster, so we carried on down the path.
After reading that tortoises dig burrows by washes, we gave a wash some extra attention, but to no avail. We spoke about the odds of seeing another Gila monster or a tortoise, which were slim. I was in the midst of explaining that we would never see one on the trail, but just as I was finishing my thought, we made a turn and my eyes saw the shell. My brain couldn’t process as fast as my eyes, so I froze and after a second, I let out a ‘No. Way.’”
Next to the small rocks that line the trail was a Mojave Desert Tortoise.
I couldn’t believe our luck or the fact that right as I was telling Ethan it won’t happen on a trail, there it was. And this time we had our camera gear. It was a special moment to see such a creature—built for the brutal elements and designed for rugged terrain. Within a week we had stumbled across the state’s most coveted reptiles. A moment not to be forgotten.
