#88 / 2009 Tour 4 Winter: Colorado Desert

COLORADO DESERT

#88

Extreme changes in the climate of the Colorado Desert create a harsh and challenging environment for the plants and big horn sheep that thrive here. "Borrego" means mountain sheep in Spanish and here in Anza Borrego Desert State Park we are told to keep an eye out for the Peninsula big horn sheep along the treacherous rocks and steep slopes of the Pinyon Ridge.

Joe and I took the Cactus Loop Trail on our second day here. We used the trail guide brochures to identify the chuparosa and catclaw shrubs, ocotillo, barrel and beavertail cacti, and the "teddy bear" or "jumping cholla" cactus. It has the description "teddy bear" because of its appearance and "jumping cholla" because the tiny barbs of each spine attach so easily to a host that a victim may claim that the spikes just jumped right on them.

I was scampering down the trail happy as a borrego when all of a sudden there was a searing pain in the fingers of my left hand. In my glee I had swung my arms a little too wide and embedded about seven needles over one inch long into my hand. Ouch, ouch, ouch!

When I went to pull them out my fingers just slid off the needles and they remained imbedded in my skin. The electricity of the pain shot up through my elbow and swirled around in my arm pit. Hot.

I had to use my fingernails to get enough grip and it still took two or three times to get them out because the barbs were embedded at leat half an inch into the flesh of my fingers, close to the bone,

With grim determination I got every one of them out but hot threads of pain circulated through my whole arm as we finished the trail. By the time we got back to the van, about twenty minutes later, the pain was over and I didn't get any swelling or after effects, save for the memory.