Friday morning saw us off for another desert hike, this one a little shorter and and a little closer to ground level. Starr Pass Trail doubles as a hiking, biking and horseback trail. We saw one other hiker, no horses and twenty or so mountain bickers.
Richard, we found your next mountain bike challenge. Lots of different trails with loose rocks with boulders to jump off of.
From the map we got at the Visitors Centre this would be a 3.5 mile hike with little elevation change. A breeze by comparison to what we did on Wednesday. Unfortunately the signage on this trail is severely lacking and there are numerous trails branching off with no way of knowing if your going in the right direction. We found out at the end of our journey that we took the wrong branch very early on and weren't on the main trail until we finally found a sign and started to head back. Thank goodness for the compass on Lori's walking stick and my IPhone. That plus the sun and a few key landmarks kept us with at least some sense of where we had parked the truck. We basically did a big loop along the desert floor so no vertigo problems but it was quite hot with little breeze. We quickly realize that we hadn't completely recovered from our Wednesday hike as we were tiring much more quickly than on the Sabino hike. And that hike was much more strenuous than this one.
This trail had loose rocks on the hills, from gravel to stones up to 6" in diameter, making descents particularly treacherous. One faulty step could result in your foot sliding on the gravel and the rest of the trip down would be on your derrière. Overall it wasn't too bad. The uncertainty of not knowing for sure where we were going did tend to make the experience a little more stressful than was necessary.
Once back at the truck we unpacked our lunch and relaxed a bit before we headed back to camp.
Left is a view from the parking lot before we headed out on our hike. The bottom of the picture shows part of Tucson and beyond, somewhere over there, is Sabino Canyon.
Lori: "Now you promise this will be an easier hike and we will definitely be back in 2 hours. None of this 4 hour stuff. Right?"
Loving Trust Worthy Husband (insert name here)_________: "Of course dear. Have I ever lied to you before".
Lori: "Bruce what's this loose gravel s _ _ t!"
Lori: "Bruce, what's this? Its another hill covered in loose rocks and gravel. This is not funny."
I can tell Lori is only slightly outside of her comfort zone as she is complaining about little inconveniences, like sliding down loose gravel and gashing her leg on a rock. Really, look around at the gorgeous scenery, take a deep breath and take in the fresh air. And look, no snakes. Isn't this grand.
Coming up behind us, lost in the bushes, are a couple of bikers.
Found out there was some sort of race going on cause as they walked their bikes past us they were mumbling "at least were not going to be last".
We were down there, by the big bald spot in the middle (photo on right). I think we were supposed to go through that V on the horizon and then to the right around the mountain and then back. But, as I said, the signage was so bad we basically did a big loop on the desert floor.
That was probably a good thing cause we were pretty tuckered out.
This is about as high up as we got. Lori kept telling me we were going in the wrong direction. And she was right, but we had to walk around the side of this little hill to go in the right direction and back to the truck.
Lori though there was an easier, more direct route, along the base of the hill, and she might have been right, but where's the challenge in that, I ask.
The picture on the right is from the top of "A" Mountain showing the city below and mountains in the distance. The picture is pretty much the same to the left or right. The city seems to just keep going and going along the valley floor with mountain ranges in the distance.
I had thought that Tucson was smaller than Winnipeg but Googl'd it and it has over 600,000 people, similar to the Peg. Feels much smaller cause it is so stretched out along the valley. Like many American cities it has a nice freeway system which makes getting around much easier than home. The city streets however make one feel right at home. Cracks and potholes everywhere.
I just hate to drive up the side of a mountain. My palms get all sweaty and I start holding my breath for some reason. Lori was fine. I was much better on the ground walking along the side of a canyon for some reason.
Left is a picnic site on the back side of "A" Mountain.
Saturday we had planned to stay in the RV Park and start our packing for our departure on Monday however it rained most of the day so we vegged inside eating freshly baked cookies and watching golf on the 40" LCD TV in HD. Roughing it, ya betcha.
Sunday will be packing up with departure early on Monday. I have scheduled a stop at an RV dealer in Tucson for them to take a look at our hitch/pinbox setup. I think some adjustment is required. Hopefully it doesn't take long and then we will hit the highway for Gold Canyon (just east of Phoenix). This is our next stop till Feb 15. This will probably be my last report till we get settled there so.......
Later.
Richard, we found your next mountain bike challenge. Lots of different trails with loose rocks with boulders to jump off of.
From the map we got at the Visitors Centre this would be a 3.5 mile hike with little elevation change. A breeze by comparison to what we did on Wednesday. Unfortunately the signage on this trail is severely lacking and there are numerous trails branching off with no way of knowing if your going in the right direction. We found out at the end of our journey that we took the wrong branch very early on and weren't on the main trail until we finally found a sign and started to head back. Thank goodness for the compass on Lori's walking stick and my IPhone. That plus the sun and a few key landmarks kept us with at least some sense of where we had parked the truck. We basically did a big loop along the desert floor so no vertigo problems but it was quite hot with little breeze. We quickly realize that we hadn't completely recovered from our Wednesday hike as we were tiring much more quickly than on the Sabino hike. And that hike was much more strenuous than this one.
This trail had loose rocks on the hills, from gravel to stones up to 6" in diameter, making descents particularly treacherous. One faulty step could result in your foot sliding on the gravel and the rest of the trip down would be on your derrière. Overall it wasn't too bad. The uncertainty of not knowing for sure where we were going did tend to make the experience a little more stressful than was necessary.
Once back at the truck we unpacked our lunch and relaxed a bit before we headed back to camp.
Left is a view from the parking lot before we headed out on our hike. The bottom of the picture shows part of Tucson and beyond, somewhere over there, is Sabino Canyon.
Loving Trust Worthy Husband (insert name here)_________: "Of course dear. Have I ever lied to you before".
Lori: "Bruce what's this loose gravel s _ _ t!"
I can tell Lori is only slightly outside of her comfort zone as she is complaining about little inconveniences, like sliding down loose gravel and gashing her leg on a rock. Really, look around at the gorgeous scenery, take a deep breath and take in the fresh air. And look, no snakes. Isn't this grand.
Coming up behind us, lost in the bushes, are a couple of bikers.
Found out there was some sort of race going on cause as they walked their bikes past us they were mumbling "at least were not going to be last".
We were down there, by the big bald spot in the middle (photo on right). I think we were supposed to go through that V on the horizon and then to the right around the mountain and then back. But, as I said, the signage was so bad we basically did a big loop on the desert floor.
This is about as high up as we got. Lori kept telling me we were going in the wrong direction. And she was right, but we had to walk around the side of this little hill to go in the right direction and back to the truck.
Lori though there was an easier, more direct route, along the base of the hill, and she might have been right, but where's the challenge in that, I ask.
I had thought that Tucson was smaller than Winnipeg but Googl'd it and it has over 600,000 people, similar to the Peg. Feels much smaller cause it is so stretched out along the valley. Like many American cities it has a nice freeway system which makes getting around much easier than home. The city streets however make one feel right at home. Cracks and potholes everywhere.
I just hate to drive up the side of a mountain. My palms get all sweaty and I start holding my breath for some reason. Lori was fine. I was much better on the ground walking along the side of a canyon for some reason.
Left is a picnic site on the back side of "A" Mountain.
Saturday we had planned to stay in the RV Park and start our packing for our departure on Monday however it rained most of the day so we vegged inside eating freshly baked cookies and watching golf on the 40" LCD TV in HD. Roughing it, ya betcha.
Sunday will be packing up with departure early on Monday. I have scheduled a stop at an RV dealer in Tucson for them to take a look at our hitch/pinbox setup. I think some adjustment is required. Hopefully it doesn't take long and then we will hit the highway for Gold Canyon (just east of Phoenix). This is our next stop till Feb 15. This will probably be my last report till we get settled there so.......
Later.
No comments:
Post a Comment