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| Hiking | 7.64 Miles |
2,175 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.64 Miles | 4 Hrs 12 Mns | | 2.11 mph |
| 2,175 ft AEG | 35 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | A friend (veteran Santa Ritas hiker who had had trouble finding Roger’s Rock on his own by talking to other hikers) wanted me to help him navigate to it today. He does presentations at the different Pima County public libraries on the Santa Ritas, and is a docent taking kids groups on short hikes every week to learn about the history, plants and wildlife in Madera Canyon. I had never been to Roger's Rock either, but I knew how to find it thanks to HAZ!
We started off shortly after 7am, and it was probably 50 degrees at the time. It was a day full of deer and turkeys...just before reaching the trailhead, we counted off 20+ turkeys along the road in one area and a few more in another area. We saw several deer families as well, both on the road and on the trail during the day.
I decided to do the route described in this description (as a loop), but to hike it counter clockwise. Upon reaching the first switchback at the southernmost part of the loop on the Super Trail, he was telling me a New Age hangout spot off trail further up canyon, where they channel energy. On the way there, however, there is a spot known as The Curse. It's a spot with over a dozen petroglyphs (made in the last century, not by native Americans) and a curse etched into the rocks around them that reads, "WHOSOEVER SHALL DEFILE THIS PLACE, SHALL INVITE THE SUBTLE WRATH OF ITS SPIRITS." He knew about it because of an old hermit he has encountered several times in the Santa Ritas and befriended, who knows about all the little odd places in the range like this.
We then continued around to the Roger's Rock turnoff. On that little stretch, we were looking for black bear, because we ran into 3 piles of fresh scat who apparently has a healthy diet of manzanita berries  . Enjoyed some nice northern views out of Madera Canyon before heading back to the loop. Up there we noticed mine tailings along the ridge to the right in 4 different places, and an open mine shaft down below as well.
Before reaching the PIpeline Trail we took the Kent Spring Trail turnoff, to visit Sylvester Spring and Kent Spring...a steeper little section but doable. Kent was stagnant, but right next to it on the other side of the trail, a stream was flowing well, strangely enough. Coming back out we missed the Pipeline Trail...or actually I did, he didn't...we went a ways and I had to eat crow, tell him he was right, and head back.
On our way out, we stopped to look at the interpretive trail by the Proctor parking area, which gave us another half mile. He wanted to take a picture of a gravesite off the trail of an old Arizona pioneer, for a 3rd, new presentation he's writing on death stories in the Santa Ritas over the decades. |
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Autumn Foliage Observation Light
Limited trees change color in Madera Canyon, but the ones that do we’re turning color nicely |
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| "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." — Henry David Thoreau |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
Large pool and running creek around trail crossing. Clear, cool, and yummy!
