** Ken **
Sent from my iPhoneThoughts mostly about travel and places I have been. While a lot of my travel is into the backcountry backpacking or paddling I do my share of trips to more traditional front-country locations too. From time to time other items of note will appear that definitely fall outside the realm of travel and associated things. It is also worth noting that I am legally blind.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Hiking Phoneline and Sabino Canyon Trails
Sabino Canyon Recreation Area is just a coupe miles from where we are staying here in Tucson. It is full of a wide assrtment of trails from easy to difficult. This loop hike which spends the bulk of it's time on trails is moderate tending towsrds the easier end. You gain around 500-600 feet as you meander up into the mountains. Views are pleasant and when you don't hear the loudspeakers of passding park trams you can soak in the desert silence. If you are lucky you might spy some wildlife like we did, about ten whorthogs or something similar. The worst of the hike is the descent along Sabino Canyon Trail which is sandy and steep in spots. We have been visiting this area around this time of year for the past decade. This year we saw very little water. The overflow just beyond the desert floor which last year was flowing briskly was bone dry. However, we found spots where pools still exist especially as we hiked down towsrds the tram road and along the road.
Sabino Canyon is definitely not the best Tucson has to offer. It is certainly beautiful when there is water, but the crowds tend to ruin it for me. Pima Canyon trails to the west are good, but Mt Lemmon and Reddington Pass are better. They both get a good bit of traffic as well but have so many miles of trails that it is easy to get away if you are willing to walk a bit. Then of course there are the Rincons and Saguaro National Park.
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Desertdog, you're right Sabino Canyon can easily be overrun but it still has much to offer not least of of which is prixumity to where we are staying this yeR. That made it a fine first day choice.
ReplyDeleteLike you we Aldo have soft spots for SAGU and Mt Lemmon. If Cgiricaua (sp) Nation Mobiment weren't so far we would have gone there again this year but we couldn't work up the desire foe a 4-hour roundtrip drive.
We found ourselves doing a lot of the trails ln the Doyglas Spring trail network this time. Sure you bump into a few people but it isn't many and doesn't detract from the hiking. EmWe were quite surprised at some of what we found this year (video coming).