It's a great time to be in Tucson with high temps in the 70's and low temps in the low 50's. All it takes is this view from our front porch tonight to remind me why we moved here.
Visitor season is approaching. Allie arrives in ten days and will stay for two weeks, working remotely. After that, there will be a steady stream of friends and family through April. Next month, my shell for the Dodge Ram should be delivered. I plan to do some rough "truck camping" in the desert this winter.
We've really been enjoying the change of the weather with one exception. Nights have been around 40 degrees, while days are generally in the upper 60's and 70's. We did get one day of rain with over an inch--that's a lot in the desert. And there was this unexpected storm that lasted about 20 minutes and left our side yard looking more like Wisconsin at Christmas.
It doesn't look like much; this white plastic bucket took the brunt of marble-sized hail.
No damage to the clay roof--that we know of.
Julia has been bugging me to take her somewhere there is some fall color, so we headed up to Mount Lemmon yesterday. It takes about 90 minutes to drive up towards the top of the mountain, where temperatures are usually about 15 degrees cooler at about 9000 feet elevation.
It was a beautiful Arizona day. Not a cloud in the sky.
We parked next to a ticketed automobile at this vista on the way up for a bathroom break. When I looked at the ticket taped to the outside window of the vehicle, the ticket indicated 72 hours abandoned. Before we left, a three vehicle crew with a stretcher parked the other side of the vehicle and headed off up the mountain. I hope it wasn't the driver of the car. Couldn't find anything about it in the newspaper.
The Bear Wallow turnoff is at Mile Marker 22--a few miles from Summerhaven. From Mile Marker 22, it's a short drive on a dirt road to where we accessed a trail in the Bear Wallow Unit. We were probably a couple of weeks past peak season, but there were still some golden aspens and reddish maples.
Shortly after joining up with the trail, we encountered an unusual thing in the woods. I think it's some kind of toilet, but it was locked with a padlock. Anyway, someone went to a lot of trouble to "plaque" the occasion.
What we discovered is that the best fall color was a short distance down the mountain from where we originally parked, so we walked a short distance on the Sunset Trail.
We ended up meandering about five miles with no particular destination in mind. This was after our 3 mile early morning walk with Callie. So we felt like we deserved a burger and a beer, even though it wasn't quite noon yet.
Summerhaven is the resort town on top of the mountain. We ordered an overpriced, but well-prepared burger with Slow Body IPA, a Tucson brewery that we hadn't tried yet. It may have been the sunny deck location on a beautiful fall day after a lot of walking, but we both agreed that the food and the beer went down really well.
We weren't quite ready to drive down the mountain yet, so we drove a few miles to Marshall Gulch, which we discovered that the Arizona Trail goes through. The map of the trail from the Mexico border to the Utah border made me think of my A.T. thru-hiking days. It seems unlikely that I'll be completing the Arizona trail, but I do intend to do some more research about some section hiking. For sure, we will return to Marshall Gulch, which had a beautiful picnic area and trails to discover.
Julia and I recently returned to Sabino Canyon to hike to Seven Falls. In retrospect, we could have been started at the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area parking lot, which would have cut off 15 minutes of drive time. But my Alltrails map didn't suggest that as an option, Instead, when I searched for Seven Falls, the first trail that came up was the Bear Canyon to Seven Falls option.
Bear Canyon could be a useful trailhead for anyone who doesn't have a National Parks pass and doesn't want to pay the $8 daily fee for parking at the Sabino Canyon parking lot. The Bear Canyon trailhead is a Pima County trail and has limited but free parking. On the weekday that we hiked, the parking lot only had a few cars parked. On the weekend, the small parking lot fills early, and people walk nearly a mile just to get to the trailhead parking lot.
This is an in and out trail and totals around 8 miles.
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The trail starts in a rocky wash and gradually goes uphill. After crossing into the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area, the trail becomes more distinct. When the water is running, and it was that day, the trail crosses the creek about a half dozen times. We completed most of the hike in with full shade. It took a long time for the sun to peek over the right side of the canyon.
Most of these crossings are fairly easy (stepping from convenient rock to convenient rock). Later the trail begins a number of switchbacks, eventually ending with a very nice view of Seven Falls (we only counted five falls, but there were probably a couple of more beyond our view).
From here, the trail drops until one arrives at what was a fairly large pool on the day of our hike. In fact, we were surprised to see small fish darting around in the shallow area of the pool. The water was quite cold. If one continues past the pool, there is a water slide that we didn't try, but watched several teenagers doing so and enjoying themselves.
A short climb gets you to the top of one of the falls, and it's also possible to walk to its base. The rocks are slippery, and one teenager took an awkward fall and ended up with some rock burn. Their small group looked up at us to see if anyone had seen him fall. We gave a friendly wave, and they all laughed.
The way back was almost all downhill, although there was quite a bit more sun and a lot more people coming up the trail. This was a good hike for the two of us--not too steep, not too long, and. not too short.
The weather here has changed for the better. Monsoon season and the extreme heat is pretty much done. Overnight lows have been in the 50's generally with dew points as low as the upper 30's. Daytime highs have ranged from the upper 70's to mid 80's. Darned near perfect for me. I can't help looking in my rear view mirror at Wisconsin weather and gloating inside a little bit.
The wildlife patterns have also changed. I haven't seen javelinas lately, but I have had four coyote sightings at dawn on the nature preserve just this week. We can also hear that the coyotes are active at night. Of course, this is the first time since we arrived that we can consistently turn off the AC and keep the window screens open all night. And we even need to pull on a blanket before morning!
Julia and I have been looking for a go-to hike that is close but still challenging. We recently hiked a trail that leads behind an Oro Valley middle school and up to the base of the Catalina Mountains.
The trail goes all the way up to the base of the mountain, and there is an optional steep section that is an in/out. It was getting late in the day, so we saved that section for another time. The views at the midpoint extended across the Oro Valley with the Tortolitas on the horizon.
On the last day of Allie and Corey's visit, we drove to Sabino Canyon Recreation Area for a short hike. I wasn't sure what to expect with the the federal government shutdown. The private concessions were open. The bathrooms were open. The visitor's center was closed. The Forest Service website for Sabino Canyon directly blames the "Radical Left Democrats." A violation of the Hatch Act? I think so.
We didn't let this political bias by certain federal officials affect our ability to enjoy a beautiful day for hiking. Public lands are for all who reside and visit here.
Allie picked out the Sabino Walkway Loop as the trail for the day. The trail was only 2.3 miles but still presented some rocky terrain with challenging ups and downs.
We got a bit of a late start so we were all pretty thirsty by the end of the trail. A trip to Pueblo Vida Brewery in Tucson cured that problem.
This interesting rig was in our campground last night. The trailer appears to be a prototype from a California start-up company.
