Goal for These Desert Troops? Bag the Buffelgrass

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Just after sunrise on the second Saturday of each month, Claudia Bloom and 20 friends scale the slopes of Piestewa Peak in central Phoenix - but not just for an invigorating hike or the splendid vistas. This small army has come to wage war, wielding pickaxes and crowbars. Their enemy? Clump after clump after clump of buffelgrass.

The weed is so invasive that it threatens the ecology of the Sonoran Desert, choking out native plants, including the iconic saguaro cactus.

Volunteer groups like Ms. Bloom's - part of the recently formed Phoenix Weedwackers - have dedicated thousands of hours to hacking and prying buffelgrass out of the rock-hard Arizona earth. …