While the past several decades have brought innumerable luxury resorts, championship golf courses and other sophisticated amenities to desert communities across the Southwest, some of these destinations are now placing a greater focus on what made them attractive to visitors in the first place: their unique natural environment and cultural traditions.
The end result is bringing myriad new ways for visitors, groups included, to experience the essence of the desert. Even Las Vegas, that ultimate expression of manmade phenomena, is getting back to basics with its new Las Vegas Springs Preserve, a complex devoted to desert history, geology and sustainable living.
“There’s been a real movement for people to explore the outdoor landscape by hiking in Red Rock Canyon and to learn more about the Native American history of the area,” says Marcel Parent, education and volunteer programs manager for the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, which opened in June. “Don’t get me wrong, the Strip is fun and I go there myself from time to time. But there’s a lot more to Las Vegas than most people realize.”
Along with attractions that highlight the desert environment, desert–oriented activities, including some with a green slant, are increasing as well. Resorts and destination management companies are designing group options centered on organic gardening, desert foods, sustainable landscaping, and more.
“Clients are very interested in really experiencing the desert destination,” says Angela Hefford, director of sales for PRA Destination Management in Scottsdale, Ariz. “At the same time, we’re definitely taking more of a green focus in what we do. We don’t feel this is a fad, but something that is here to stay.”
Preserving Las Vegas
While history, nature and sustainability are not the first things that come to mind about Las Vegas, nevertheless they are the focus of the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, a $250 million cultural complex located three miles west of the Strip on an historic site called Las Vegas Springs. The site, an ancient water source for Native Americans and Western explorers, is often referred to as “the birthplace of Las Vegas.”
“This is really historic land—without it there would be no Las Vegas,” Parent says. “So it really impresses upon us to make people aware of how rich the history of Las Vegas is. A lot of people think our history started with Bugsy Siegel and the Rat Pack, but it pre-dates the 1950s by a long shot.”
Along with history, the preserve focuses on sustainability issues pertinent to the fragile desert environment.
“The facility is dedicated to creating a sense of stewardship for the desert,” Parent says, adding that Las Vegas development is putting a lot of strain on the environment and that the city has been slow to practice recycling and other green practices. “So we felt it was important to bring sustainability ideas to people.”
The 180-acre preserve, which is being recognized with Leadership in Environment Design (LEED) certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, features museums, galleries, a botanical garden, a desert wetland, an outdoor amphitheater, a 2.5-mile interpretive trail system, and other amenities.
While most of the complex opened in June, a major upcoming component will be the Nevada State Museum, which will relocate to the site next year. The museum focuses on the state’s diverse history, including exhibits of newly discovered dinosaur fossils and the development of the casino era.
The preserve’s Desert Learning Center provides interactive exhibits pertaining to conservation, alternative energy and other environmental concerns, while the Origen Experience focuses on the natural and cultural history of the area.
With a wide variety of indoor and outdoor function spaces, the Las Vegas Springs Preserve is available for everything from board meetings to themed gala events.
For groups with an interest in environmental issues, customized tours of the complex, workshops and even green-themed scavenger hunts can be arranged.
“We don’t lecture, we ‘wow’ people with what we’ve done here,” Parent says, referring to the use of recycled materials in constructing buildings such as the Desert Learning Center.
“For example, the conference center area has a roof made out of trestles from an abandoned railroad in Utah,” he says. “We got massive beams without felling a single tree. Even the desks in the reception area are made out of recycled paper mixed with resin, forming an incredibly hard surface.”
Sonoran Stewardship
In Arizona, a massive desert protection effort is under way at Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Preserve, which currently offers 16,460 acres of protected lands with trails for hiking and horseback riding. The nonprofit McDowell Sonoran Land Trust is working with city officials to acquire an additional 20,000 acres of state trust land to add to the preserve, which borders on the Tonto National Forest and McDowell Mountain Regional Park.
Plans are afoot to offer an array of visitor amenities at the preserve, including a Desert Discovery Center, which will offer interactive exhibits and a virtual learning center, and also serve as a jumping off point for Jeep tours, horseback rides, mountain biking, guided hikes, and other activities.
Guided hikes of the preserve are currently offered by volunteers known as Pathfinders who can speak on the area’s history and plant life.
According to Bob Cafarella, preservation director for the city of Scottsdale, the idea for the preserve took hold in the 1990s when local citizens became concerned that Scottsdale’s remaining virgin desert was in danger of being paved over.
“People in the community realized that if steps were not taken to set some of this land aside, especially as development creeps north, it would be too late,” he says, adding that the Desert Discovery Center should be a reality in another two or three years.
In the meantime, meeting attendees can get involved in some desert preservation of their own through a new program offered by PRA Destination Management in Scottsdale. Groups are taken out to the 21,000-acre McDowell Mountain Regional Park, the scene of a massive wildfire in 1996.
“The focus is in learning about the desert environment and about what a fragile ecosystem it is,” says PRA’s Hefford. “The group is divided up into teams, with each team learning about a different aspect of desert gardening, such as watering techniques. When the teams come together, they get a chance to plant some cacti in areas damaged by the fire.”
Harvest Time
Resort properties throughout the Southwest are creating new ways for guests to have a more than just superficial experience with their surroundings. A couple of new approaches include ways that groups can enjoy events centered on regional culinary traditions and locally grown organic foods.
The Boulders Resort in Carefree, Ariz., recently became an “all-organic” property by featuring organic foods in its Latilla restaurant, creating an Organic Garden, offering cooking classes with organic ingredients at its Golden Door Spa, and organizing a farmer’s market at the adjacent El Pedregal festival marketplace.
“We went organic because a lot of people are trying to eat a healthier, more localized diet in their homes,” says Robin Kunze, director of catering for the resort. “So why not bring this concept to a resort?”
Designed with a reflection pond and elevated planter boxes brimming with herbs and vegetables, the Organic Garden seats up to 50 guests for sunset dinners and wine tasting events.
The garden is also the scene of the “Enlightened Garden Lunch” program, during which attendees can enjoy a midday meal while chefs conduct organic cooking demonstrations and interactive classes.
In New Mexico, the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa, located on the Santa Ana Pueblo reservation outside Albuquerque, has a new program of fall activities that are centered on such local traditions as blue corn harvesting, chile roasting and Native American bread baking.
The tours and classes are led by resort chefs and Native American culinary experts from the 710-member pueblo community, which owns the resort.
Among the most popular options for groups is Native American bread baking, which takes place in an open courtyard using an outdoor oven. Participants work alongside a Santa Ana baking expert to learn the secrets of making traditional pueblo bread.
“People really get into the spirit of the thing – kneading the dough and then baking it in the oven,” says Nina Santellanes, director of sales for Tamaya Resort. “Afterwards, everyone gets to eat their bread hot from the oven with green chile butter, local honey and other spreads.”
Other possibilities include Chile Chat classes led by Executive Chef Mark Ching, which focus on the New Mexican history and tradition of chile peppers, exploring the different types of chiles harvested in the state and their culinary uses. Groups can also enjoy special five-course meals in which chile peppers are used in every dish, including desert.
Tamaya also coordinates tours of Albuquerque’s El Pinto Chile and Salsa Factory, where participants can observe chile roasting and cooking demonstrations. Blue corn, a specialty product of the Santa Ana Pueblo, is the focus of tours to a corn mill on the reservation where participants learn about its uses in everything from regional dishes to spa products.
The surrounding high desert itself is the star feature of Tamaya’s new House of the Hummingbird, an open-air, 12,000-square-foot “ballroom” surrounded by walls designed to resemble an ancient adobe ruin. Within the space is a 7,500-square-foot lawn, an amphitheater and a garden planted with roses, lavender, geraniums, and honey locust trees.
Flora and Fauna
Botanical gardens, long a fixture in the Desert Southwest, are also offering new ways to showcase the desert environment and are playing an active role in conservation.
In Phoenix, the Desert Botanical Garden, nestled among the red buttes of Papago Park and home to dozens of rare and endangered plant species, offers tours and activities for groups that go beyond just admiring the landscape.
Tours such as Plants & People of the Sonoran Desert focus on edible and medicinal plants and how native people of the region have used them for centuries. Hands-on activities during the tour include making rope from Agave leaves and flour from mesquite beans.
With its open-air pavilions, secluded courtyard and indoor conference areas, the Desert Botanical Garden is a venue for everything from team-building events and breakout sessions to formal dinners under the stars.
Tucson’s Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum, an active participant in wildlife recovery programs, is the place to see thousands of plant and wildlife species, some of them rare or endangered, native to the Southwest. Set on 100 acres, the mostly open-air museum offers such intriguing features as a walk-through hummingbird aviary, rocky habitats for mountain lions and bighorn sheep, a cactus garden, and a huge collection of fossils, gems and minerals from the desert.
Desert garden vistas are a major part of function spaces at the museum, including the Baldwin Education Building with its glass-panel wall opening onto an outdoor balcony. Other venues include the 270-seat Warren Theater, the tree-shaded Taylor Plaza and the Ocotillo Cafe, which offers both indoor and outdoor dining.
The Living Desert in Palm Springs, Calif., is another outstanding botanical and zoological garden with an emphasis on the flora and fauna of the desert. The facility’s North American section is comprised of dozens of desert gardens that are a habitat for hummingbirds, doves, cactus wrens, roadrunners, lizards, and other creatures.
Among its special features are After Sundown, an exhibit devoted to nocturnal creatures, and Eagle Canyon, a habitat for golden eagles, mountain lions, badgers, foxes, and the rare Mexican gray wolf.
Evening outdoor events are frequently held at The Living Desert’s Palm Garden Patio, which can accommodate everything from informal events to festive theme parties.
Other spaces available for events include Village WaTu Tu, a replica of a north Kenyan village with plant and animal exhibits, and the Wildlife Hospital and Conservation Center, a stunning modern building with areas for indoor and outdoor receptions.
Arts and Culture
Already the leading museum pertaining to Native American culture of the Southwest, Phoenix’s Heard Museum recently opened a new branch in Scottsdale, Heard Museum North.
The new museum branch presents a long-term exhibit, Choices and Change: American Indian Artists in the Southwest, and features paintings, sculpture, jewelry, baskets, kachina dolls, and pottery from the Heard Museum collection.
In addition, Heard Museum North offers the 1,500-square-foot Interpretive Garden, developed in partnership with the Desert Botanical Garden, which offers native plants and sculptures by Native American artists.
Located 60 miles southwest of Tucson in Topawa, Ariz., the new Tohono O’odham Nation Cultural Center and Museum is a window into the culture of the Tohono O’odham people who reside on the surrounding 2.8 million acres of Sonoran Desert.
The museum, which sits in the shadow of the tribe’s sacred Boboquivari Mountain, exhibits the work of tribal artists and also focuses on the tribe’s history, including life before European contact, traditional foods and farming methods and language.
Available for special events, the cultural center offers classrooms, artists’ demonstration areas, an amphitheater with a stage and sound system, and two ramadas, traditional desert outdoor shelters.
In downtown Palm Springs, the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum is a good place to learn about the history, art and culture of the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians who have lived in the region for over 3,000 years. Exhibits display the exquisite work of Cahuilla basket weavers as well as ceramics, stone utensils and other items. Cultural events, lectures and seasonal exhibitions are scheduled throughout the year.
The museum is good preparation for exploring the nearby palm groves and rocky gorges of Indian Canyons and Tahquitz Canyon, ancestral lands of the Cahuilla people. Accessible on foot or horseback, the canyons are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and still provide glimpses of early Cahuilla life through rock art, food preparation areas, irrigation ditches, and foundations.
For More Info
Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum 520.883.2702
www.desertmuseum.org
The Boulders Resort 480.488.9009
www.theboulders.com
Desert Botanical Garden 480.941.1225
www.dbg.org
Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort 505.867.1234
www.tamaya.hyatt.com
Las Vegas Springs Preserve 702.822.7700
www.springspreserve.org
The Living Desert 760.346.5694
www.livingdesert.org
McDowell Sonoran Preservewww.mcdowellsonoran.org
PRA Destination Management 480.893.0988
www.pra.com
