It can’t be easy being a cactus on the Colorado plains.  It’s not exactly orchid country. The 300 days of sun we get annually come with temperatures ranging from minus-15 degrees in winter, to easily over 100 degrees (sometimes for days at a stretch) during summer. The average annual rainfall is just under 14 inches, including precipitation from snow and the occasional hail storm. You can throw in about 10 days of windy weather where gusts can reach well over 50 m.p.h., as well. Yet despite all those extremes, plants around here somehow persist.

This particular walking stick cactus, or cholla, stands about a foot tall and has anchored itself to a crack in a cliff along the Roller Coaster trail at Lake Pueblo State Park. There’s nothing but some dirt and shale and tufts of gramma grass surrounding it, kind of like a wild west version of a Japanese bonsai. It lives an exposed and precarious existence as anything possibly could; still, it endures.

Rather impressive, I’d say.