I know its not the northeast....
The Ridge rises along the Tucson skyline where we celebrated the Christmas Holidays with the whole family. I met up with a friend of my sister's and we left the trailhead in Saguaro Nat'l Park around 8:45, dressed in shorts and tank top. TH temp was around 45 degrees and rising fast. We start up thru desert terrain(about a thousand types of cacti) and then gained the ridge in about 30 min. From here, it was up and down for as far as we wanted to travel. The trail stayed on the crest of the ridge most of the time, so you were either looking over Tucson at peaks 50-60 miles away, the Rincon range on one side, or the Mt Lemmon Peaks towering over the city in the other. The highe we went, the city came into sight only now and again, and with the sparse vegetation, the acres of beargrass resembled the tops of higher mtns in the NE.
We started at just over 3,100', and turned around at about 5,600' as I had dinner plans with the family and the 'rents at 5pm. Otherwise, the hard, dry trails made gaining the elevation almost unnoticeable. The air temps in Tucson today are in the high 70's, but the humidity is virtually nonexistent.
It was a real treat to high in such a beautiful area, with one of the country's majoy metropolitan areas in sight. A beautiful, 5-star trail whenever you're in the southwest.
Back to upstate NY in a couple of days.
The Ridge rises along the Tucson skyline where we celebrated the Christmas Holidays with the whole family. I met up with a friend of my sister's and we left the trailhead in Saguaro Nat'l Park around 8:45, dressed in shorts and tank top. TH temp was around 45 degrees and rising fast. We start up thru desert terrain(about a thousand types of cacti) and then gained the ridge in about 30 min. From here, it was up and down for as far as we wanted to travel. The trail stayed on the crest of the ridge most of the time, so you were either looking over Tucson at peaks 50-60 miles away, the Rincon range on one side, or the Mt Lemmon Peaks towering over the city in the other. The highe we went, the city came into sight only now and again, and with the sparse vegetation, the acres of beargrass resembled the tops of higher mtns in the NE.
We started at just over 3,100', and turned around at about 5,600' as I had dinner plans with the family and the 'rents at 5pm. Otherwise, the hard, dry trails made gaining the elevation almost unnoticeable. The air temps in Tucson today are in the high 70's, but the humidity is virtually nonexistent.
It was a real treat to high in such a beautiful area, with one of the country's majoy metropolitan areas in sight. A beautiful, 5-star trail whenever you're in the southwest.
Back to upstate NY in a couple of days.
