Into the Wild: Discover Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge from Ajo
- Sonoran Desert Inn
- 6 hours ago
- 5 min read
There is a moment, traveling through the Sonoran Desert, when the landscape seems to open farther than you thought possible.
Mountains rise from immense valleys. Saguaros stand miles apart beneath an enormous sky. Roads become quieter, town disappears from the rearview mirror and the desert begins to feel truly wild.
Just beyond Ajo lies one of the best places in Arizona to experience that feeling: Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.
Containing more than 800,000 acres of designated wilderness, Cabeza Prieta protects an extraordinary stretch of the Sonoran Desert and is part of the larger Sonoran Desert Biosphere Reserve. More than 90 percent of the refuge is federally designated wilderness, making it one of the largest wilderness areas in the contiguous United States.
For travelers staying in Ajo, exploring Cabeza Prieta can begin just minutes from your room.
Start at the Cabeza Prieta Visitor Center in Ajo
Before (or instead of) venturing into the refuge itself, make your first stop the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center and Headquarters, located right in Ajo at 1611 North Second Avenue.
The visitor center is one of the easiest ways to begin understanding the landscape surrounding the community. Inside, visitors can explore exhibits about local plants and wildlife, watch wildlife videos, pick up maps and brochures and see a three-dimensional topographic map that offers a bird's-eye view of the refuge. Staff and volunteers can also help answer questions and provide guidance before you head into the backcountry.
Outside, an easy 0.2-mile interpretive trail introduces visitors to the desert environment, and a wildlife water feature behind the visitor center provides another opportunity to slow down and see what might appear.
The visitor center is currently open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., while refuge lands, roads and trails are open daily. Before your trip, check current hours and conditions with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Meet the Wildlife of the Sonoran Desert
Cabeza Prieta was originally established in 1939 as a game range to help conserve wildlife and natural resources, including the desert bighorn sheep. Today it protects one of the most intact stretches of Sonoran Desert habitat in the region.
This desert is anything but empty.
Bobcat near mine USFWS Black Throated Gray Warbler Renee Tressler/USFWS Chuckwalla basking on rock Greg Risdahl/USFWS Round-tail ground squirrel in burrow Renee Tressler/USFWS Gila Monster under Palo Verde tree USFWS
The wider Sonoran Desert supports thousands of plant species and an incredible variety of mammals, birds, reptiles and other wildlife. Cabeza Prieta itself provides important habitat for animals including desert bighorn sheep and the endangered Sonoran pronghorn, along with coyotes, reptiles, desert birds and countless smaller creatures adapted to life in an extreme environment.
Spring and fall can be particularly rewarding for birders as migrating species pass through the refuge, while early morning and evening generally offer some of the best opportunities for wildlife watching.
And sometimes the experience is less about what you see than what you don't.
Cabeza Prieta is a place for listening to wind moving through desert plants, watching shadows crawl across distant mountains and realizing just how much space still exists between you and almost everything else.
Going Deeper: Planning a Visit to Cabeza Prieta
A visit to the visitor center can be spontaneous.
A trip into the refuge itself should not be.
Anyone entering Cabeza Prieta must obtain a free access permit before visiting. Permits can be obtained online, and visitors are required to carry a copy with them. Maps are also available through the refuge and at the visitor center.
There are only a handful of designated public-use roads through this enormous wilderness, including El Camino del Diablo, Christmas Pass Road and Charlie Bell Road. Vehicles must remain on designated roads, while motorized or mechanized travel into designated wilderness is prohibited.
This is genuine backcountry.
There is no cell service, drinking water, fuel or restroom infrastructure within most of the refuge, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommends arriving with ample water and food, emergency supplies and even two spare tires and basic mechanical equipment. Summer temperatures can climb well above 100 degrees.
For most visitors, the cooler months from late fall through early spring are the ideal time to explore.
If you're new to the area, stop at the visitor center first, talk with refuge staff and choose an outing appropriate for your vehicle, experience and the current road conditions.
There is no need to conquer this landscape. Cabeza Prieta rewards those willing to enter it slowly and respectfully.
The Desert That Called to Edward Abbey
There is another layer to the story of Cabeza Prieta, one that has helped give these remote lands an almost mythical place in the literature of the American West.
Writer and environmentalist Edward Abbey, author of Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang, spent much of his life wandering, writing about and defending the deserts of the Southwest.
He also knew this country.
Abbey made repeated journeys into the Cabeza Prieta region, and when he died in Arizona in 1989, several of his closest friends honored his unconventional final wishes. His body was transported into the desert and buried in a secret location.
Exactly where remains part of the mystery.
Accounts from Abbey's friends and biographers place the grave somewhere in the Cabeza Prieta desert, and it is widely believed to lie within or around the refuge wilderness. The handful of people who know its precise location have largely kept it that way.
A small stone reportedly marks the site simply with his name, his dates and two words:
“No Comment.”
It seems appropriate that one of the West's most famous defenders of wilderness would ultimately disappear into it.
For visitors, Abbey's grave isn't a destination to seek out. Its mystery is part of the story. Somewhere in this vast landscape, the desert writer became quite literally part of the desert he spent so much of his life exploring.
Make Ajo Your Basecamp for the Wild
One of the remarkable things about staying in Ajo is how quickly the comforts of town give way to immense stretches of protected desert.
Spend the morning learning about wildlife at the Cabeza Prieta Visitor Center. Wander Ajo's historic plaza and grab lunch in town. Then, with the proper preparation and permit, venture toward a landscape where roads become fewer, horizons grow wider and the Sonoran Desert takes center stage.
Afterward, return to the Sonoran Desert Inn & Conference Center, where a comfortable room, historic surroundings and the creative community of Ajo are waiting.
Because sometimes the best way to experience wilderness is to travel to its edge, spend some time getting to know it and let it remind you just how big the world can be.
Plan your stay at the Sonoran Desert Inn and make Ajo your basecamp for exploring the wild heart of the Sonoran Desert.
