I headed to the very bottom of the Arizona Trail—the southern terminus in the Huachuca Mountains—to hike the final stretch and see, firsthand, what border wall construction actually looks like on the ground. The AZT is one of only 11 National Scenic Trails, and it was routed through Arizona’s “sky islands” on purpose: these mountain ranges rise out of the desert like islands, and each one holds its own little pocket of biodiversity. In just a day I went from cactus and red rock to snow, aspens, and a 9,465-foot summit on Miller Peak—beautiful, remote, and deceptively rugged. But the big reason I went was to understand what changes when a wall, a patrol road, and more infrastructure slice through a wildlife corridor and a trail that people chase for 800 miles. I talk about jaguars, pronghorn, bears, and the genetic mixing these borderlands depend on, and I show a real game camera studying that movement. Standing at Monument 102 with a wall “floating in the middle of nowhere,” it hit me: this landscape is stunning, and it deserves to be honored and protected—not turned into a scar. Border wall or no border wall, I love this desert, and I want future generations to get the same kind of awe out here.