2026

Years ago when I first heard of the El Camino del Diablo I think I was a bit intimidated. Warnings about illegal activity close to the border, don’t go alone, all the typical chicken little things you hear, mostly from people that haven’t been. After a trip to Baja that felt safer than a lot of places you could go in the U.S., and other trips along the southern border, it now just seemed like another backcountry trip to prepare for.

The El Camino del Diablo (Spanish for the ‘Path of the Devil’) has earned it’s name, to be sure. Similar to the Mojave Trail, it was used for thousands of years by Native Americans. The Spanish used it as a path between Mexico and the California’s as early as the 1500’s by members of the Coronado expedition. Many have lost their lives along the route due to extreme heat, lack of water and the utter remoteness.

After a couple days at the Buenos Aries National Wildlife Refuge we moved a bit north for a day at the Saguaro National Park. We found all shapes and sizes of saguaros, and with each one having a bit of its own character, it was hard to stop taking pictures of them.

After leaving Whitewater Draw we continued our westward progress across southern Arizona. We made a brief stop in Tombstone, but as I mentioned before, there wasn't much for us there. We spent the night in the Coronado National Forest near Patagonia and the next morning we headed to the Paton Center For Hummingbirds. Started in the 1970's by Wally and Marion Paton and now operated by the Tucson Bird Alliance it illustrates what a couple…