Cordones Ridge to Biosphere, AZ

Overview
This hike attempts to follow the Cordones ridge from near Oracle road to the area close to the Biosphere, stopping at some interesting sites along the way. This hike involves some bushwhacking, some walking in sandy washes, walking some ridgelines, and walking a lot of dirt roads that are quite rocky in many areas.


Hike
After parking, walk North and enter the sandy wash. Then follow the wash Northeast for roughly 1.3 miles. When the wash gets messy, and it will, walk on either side, following in that general direction. After roughly 0.8 miles, you should see a road that crosses the wash. Exit the wash going East and the road will bend to the North. Follow the road North / Northeast for about another 0.5 miles. Then turn going North and bushwhack to the top of the ridge to your North.From this point, the Tascal Tank (similar to a pond) is roughly 0.35 miles to your West. See route for approximate location. This is an area where cows may gather at various times. There is also a ravine slightly West of the tank that we didn't take the time to visit on this trip. We continued back to the ridge where we came from. We followed the ridgeline up for the next 0.4 miles and then we ran into a road. Then we followed that road for another 0.8 miles until we ran into another road going left/right. We turned left here and followed the road uphill. On the upper part of this road, there should be some excellent views of Mt Lemmon and many of the peaks in the Catalinas including Pusch Peak, Bighorn Mountain, Table Mountain, Cathedral Rock, Finger Rock from the backside, Mt Kimball, etc. In February, on a 70-degree day, we saw the snow on the back side of Mt Lemmon.

After walking approximately 3.3 miles of road we saw a water tank and, not far after that, a gate that said private property headed in the direction of the Biosphere. From this point, we were not able to get any closer to the Biosphere without another bushwhack. We decided to turn back and head down the road back to the vehicle, following various roads all the way down and doing a short bushwhack to the parking area.

Note
Special thanks to Dave W. for suggesting this ridge which was new to us.

2022-02-22 Mike_W