Anyone backpacking Organ Pipe?

[Moab Randy]

Decades  ago I lived in Tucson and backpacked a couple of times in Organ Pipe National Monument. Even then car breakins were a problem. Haven’t been back since. I’m wondering if anyone is backpacking there now and what the conditions are like. Over the years since I left I’ve heard reports and rumors of routes across the desert being “paved” with discarded water bottles and clothing from the many more passing migrants and drug smugglers, smugglers’ sentries on mountaintops etc. For a while Organ Pipe was considered by NPS to be the most dangerous park in the country. Wondering how things are now. Is it still a high-traffic place, still a smuggling route etc.? or would it now be a place where you could park a vehicle and take off cross country with a reasonable expectation of some solitude and safety?

[David Thomas]

I was day hiking around Organ Pipe Cactus NM January two years ago (due to temps in the teens in the GCNP inner canyon – colder than we wanted after spending one night all bundled up).

I found the signs about violent, heavily armed migrants and violent heavily armed LEOs kind of off-putting.  I didn’t see any litter, human waste, stashes of water, or any other indications of border issues, although we were on established trails and gated-off dirt roads.  If not for the warning signs, I’d have not had any worries.

In the miles we walked, we saw one older couple – bird watcher types.

[Arthur]

There last spring.  Echo totally what David said. Even the commercial campground was only about 20% full.  We saw some border patrol, but they did not get out of their trucks or even wave.  We need more bad press and a slew of these signs in other areas to keep the crowds down.

[Terran Terran]

The area doesn’t matter. Car break-ins often depend on the current crop of kids and the availability of law enforcement. Trash is left by nearby residents, the homeless, and the drug addicts. Smugglers don’t walk. They’re too lazy.

[Author]

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