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| Hiking | 11.50 Miles |
3,534 AEG |
| | Hiking | 11.50 Miles | | | |
| 3,534 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | We were scheduled to do Mount Wrightson today but when we picked up Mark we noticed that we couldn't see the Santa Ritas at all so we headed up the Catalina Highway. We decided to do a WOR loop. Joel and I hadn't done the Mint Springs or Carter Canyon trails in 3 years so we decided to incorporate them into the loop. This is actually a great way to do the WOR because the trailhead isn't really busy (unlike Marshall Gulch and the Mount Lemmon THs).
We headed up the Mint Springs trail and encountered a lush area of Columbines, 4-O'Clocks, Raspberries (they were tasty), and many more flowers. From there we got on the Wilderness of Rocks trail. We stopped at a rock outcropping that we like to use as a break spot because of the views of Cathedral Peak and Tucson. From there we continued down and then up to the junction with the Mt. Lemmon trail. As we were approaching the junction we ended up walking in the clouds. The humidity was high so we were soaked. We stopped at the junction for lunch. I had some French imported tuna/pasta can I found at AJ's and it reminded me of an MRE. I thought AJ's was supposed to have posh food!
We continued up to the junction with the Sutherland trail. The switchback before this junction always kill me. I keep hoping that someday someone will shorten that part of the trail. It hasn't happened yet!
We got on the Aspen trail and then started to look for the old historic Carter Canyon trail that is no longer maintained by the FS. Joel found a cairn and so we checked the GPS and agreed that it was the Carter Canyon trail. We had done this trail 3 years ago when I was on chemo. Either the chemo made me think the trail was easy (not) or a lot had changed in 3 years. There was downfall all over the place and it was hard to find the trail at first. We discovered that someone had flagged the trail so then we were able to follow it while hopping over various logs. Luckily, we didn't have to fight through buckhorn instead we encountered just a few locust. It was obvious that very few people know about this trail which is sad because supposedly it's a trail that Sara Lemmon used to go to the top of Mt. Lemmon.
On the way out, we noticed that Summerhaven was really busy. We were going to stop for cookies but decided to head on down the mountain instead of waiting in line. Joel stopped at the Cafe Italiano on Grant/Swan for a gelato treat which perked us right up! |
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Wildflowers Observation Moderate
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