I took a week-long trip to Zion National Park around the Memorial Day weekend. While cactus spotting was not the reason I went there, the hikes were (I followed this great guide for that), I was pleasantly surprised to see quite a few cacti in habitat, many of them in bloom.
By far the predominant cactus species was Opuntia. What I did not expect though were so many different types of Opuntia, much more diversity than in places like southern Europe, which is the only other region I had seen them in habitat before. Here are some pictures of them on the Watchman trail, including a gorgeous variegated one. I wish I knew the names but I am no Opuntia expert so I could not really identify them.
Opuntias and echinocereus 
Variegated opuntia leaf
Other than opuntias I was really happy to spot a few echinocereus. Most of these were on the Watchman trail again. I saw something spiky through the grass and which led me to going a couple of feet off the trail into an entire area with echinecereus clumps spread among opuntias. Most of them were about to bloom but I must have been 1 day too early, so I couldn’t tell what color the flowers were. These echinocerei had really long threatening spines that on closer inspection were paper-like in texture.
Finally the Angel’s landing trail, one of the most beautiful trails in the park, had a bit of both but especially some amazing opuntia blooms that varied greatly in color: I had never seen a peach color bloom (the body looked identical to the pink flowering one next to it) or an almost red one like the one in the photos bellow. The echinocereus clump I saw on this trail had grown in the shadow of a dead tree and looked different than the ones on the Watchman trial: the body was slightly smaller with a lighter shade of green while the spines were much shorter.
