The Perils of Cholla

I can not emphasize how sneaky and painful the cholla cactus can be. Yesterday, on our survey, while we were walking along looking for archaeological sites, my co-working was impaled by some kind of cholla--maybe a pencil cholla or stick cholla with longer spines. It had 1-1.5 inch spines and was easily 1 inch into his calf muscle. He yelped quite loudly and then cursed for quite awhile. It took the pliers on his multitool (like a leatherman) to remove the spine from his leg. He then looked at his calf and it looked like a big bruise with swelling was forming around the puncture. He limped back the rest of the transect to the truck and we had to make it a short day.

This is not the first time I have seen someone traumatized by cholla. In Arizona, while hiking with friends, I told my firends about the infamous Jumping Cholla, also known as Teddy Bear Cholla, which has the reputation of actually jumping on you. In fact, it does not take much for it to attach, very slight contact will allow it to grab on to you, so it seems to jump on you. I never found this out for myself, knowing that names like this have roots in reality, but one of the guys I told this too just had to test this idea out. He didn't believe it. He went over to closely examine one, reached out to touch the something, and a cholla plant jumped on his hand. Actually it came from below his hand where it had been cleverly disguised, and he touched it. Their spines are even worse than the spines on the cholla that attacked my co-worker above. The Jumping Cholla has slightly curled thorns that go in every which direction making them very difficult to remove. Once again the leatherman was used to remove it. But it was not pretty.

So remember, keep away from cholla!