A small Geo Mashup customization for Laini’s Little Pocket Guide adds a link in the info window to Street View where it is available. Street View is loaded over the map, similar to Google’s interface, with a close button up top to return to the map. This is good stuff – some of this code may have to go into future versions of Geo Mashup…
We realize we’re about to leave Tucson without doing any of the “challenges” we concocted for ourselves while researching the area. The most practical one is to hike Mount Kimball via a trail in Finger Rock canyon that gains 4,000 feet of elevation in 5 miles, for a 10 mile round trip. We figure we’ve been averaging 2 miles per hour lately, so six hours should be plenty of time, and we plan a 1 pm departure. We’re even a little early when start hiking toward the iconic Finger Rock, but after two hours we check the map see we’ve made about … 2 miles. You think we hike enough to consider trail grade in our estimates? Perhaps we thought we’re in such good shape that grade doesn’t matter – ha!
Ann recalls the moon is full tonight, and we have headlamps, so we decide to proceed anyway and descend in the dark. The trail has some exposed sections above cliffs, but we’re pretty sure we’ll make it down these in the light, and we do. I love hiking at dusk when everything grows calm and still, all bathed in a fading glow. To her surprise Ann enjoys it too, and we stop at the spring and eat in the dark, listening to a chorus of frogs make sounds so big you could mistake them for goats.
Our last treat is the full moon rising over the saguaro-covered ridges to shine down on a sparkling Tucson. This has been our best planning failure so far.
I used walking-papers.org to make a PDF trail map for this hike.
On the menu today: a cornucopia of cactus. There are many other attractions at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, like a butterfly house that is important to the world migrations of some species of butterflies, but we’re hungry for cactus. With biological diversity in decline, it feels good now and then to just blow your mind with the unimaginable varieties of life still with us, and cactus are some of my favorite. We feast until we can barely stand, and still leave many dishes untasted.
I encourage a quick trip to the photoset for a small sample of crazy forms cactus can take.
I figure this now-familiar area is a good place to see if I can lead something a little harder. After a few nice easier routes in warm, pleasant afternoon weather, I pick out Solitary Refinement 5.10a. It’s a shady, gently overhanging, blocky sport climb. Ann and I are both nervous, and I fight to stay calm as I start. The first two clips go well, then suddenly the climbing seems incredibly hard. I fight to reach for a terrible hold and fall off. It’s an easy fall, which helps. After dangling I figure out that I need to follow the big holds (HELLO), and manage to finish the nice mix of rounded blocks, a bulgy arete, and some final thin face moves. Whew! I enjoy the small victory and the physical workout, but still feel a little shaken and unsure how much I want to pursue harder grades. So our endless rocky romance with climbing goes on…
This little canyon is a sweet place to escape for an afternoon. The creek is still running, and lately we’ve been seeing a lot of frogs.
After seeing signs for the Arizona Trail, I get curious how it traverses Molino Canyon, where we’ve been climbing a little at Jailhouse Rock. I’ve also noticed that some trails show up in this area at OpenStreetMap.org, but not the AZT. Thus today’s mission is born – map the AZT in Molino canyon while enjoying a little barefoot travel. We make the outing in the morning, and find excellent trail and signage, so navigation isn’t difficult. The gravel on the trail is too sharp for me to make the whole outing barefoot, but I feel great otherwise. We get a nice view south on the canyon rim before turning around.
Later I join OpenStreetMap, learn to use the editor, and presto! My section of trail is added. This could be addicting!
We nearly give up on this crag without climbing anything. Aside from a fun looking 5.9 offwidth that I don’t feel up to yet, the routes look hard to find, or hard to protect, or just kind of scrubby and uncertain. Further up the hill, though, we find some other climbers with a toprope up, and there’s a crack there that looks worth an attempt, Rock Candy 5.6. Different sources list it from 5.6 to 5.9 and are generally disparaging, but I find it reminiscent of Vedauwoo, with some hand jams, chimneying, an exposed move on a chicken wing – all with good but thoughtful protection. From there we toprope Toy Roof 5.9+ and Jump For Joyce 5.8, both interesting face climbs with intervening diagonal seams. The moon rises and everything becomes lovely. I have to stop to take one more picture on the drive down, and we meet a couple who has just done a series of 5 rappels down the Seven Cataracts section of Bear Canyon that involved “being pummeled by water – and that doesn’t even describe how wet you get.” Sounds fun!
It looks like rain, so I head for a non-canyon hike. The trails in Saguaro National Park are so nice for barefooting, I make the whole run shoeless. Along the way I pick a spot and take a waypoint for Ann to find when she follows – our own simple geocaching game. The lime falls trail is a little sharp, but worth slowing down to look at the strange rock pools. On my way back the rain begins, and the ensuing smell that rises from the wet desert ground is intoxicating. Just as I’m beginning to tire, my longest barefoot run so far is over.
Ann makes an astute observation: we could save ten miles of driving if we hike to the Jailhouse Rock crag from below, up through Soldier Canyon. It’s just five extra miles of hiking, and a couple thousand feet of elevation gain to haul our forty pound climbing packs up. No brainer! We sweat our way up past blooming poppies, bag a few routes, and follow the creek down sculpted marble pools back to the trail. We even reach our truck before dark, in full agreement that it was a great idea.
My guess at our routes, all small edges and disappearing cracks with a mix of gear and bolts: Mr. Meanor 5.8+, Mug Shot 5.8+, Off Scot Free 5.9+
I’ve been eating vegan for well over a year, and still haven’t been to a fully vegan restaurant. Today we get on the bikes and head for my first. Ah, I never realized what a nice feeling it is to consider an entire menu freely. I guess it’s not surprising that many of the items are things we often cook ourselves. We don’t have a fryer though, so fries make the cut, and some veggie egg rolls. The menu has a lot of soy-based meat substitutes, which aren’t usually my favorite, but the azuki bean burger tastes great without pretending too hard to be meat. Dessert is a wedge of dense carrot cake, an experience that I would make the bike ride back to repeat by itself.
The place itself is not all hippied out as I thought it might be. It looks like a any suburban family diner might. It doesn’t play up the vegan angle much at all – I wonder if some part of clientele never catches on.
It’s the first weekend of spring, there’s a big airshow going on over the southeast quadrant of Tucson, the sun is shining, and everybody is out. A good day for some casual biking and eating out.
Another trailhead in the midst of posh houses takes us through an easement corridor and into the alternately rocky and lush Pima Canyon. Our goal for the evening is “the dam”, a waypoint 3.2 miles up the canyon. I run ahead, getting some barefoot time in, until the peace of the place overcomes me and I stop to wait for Ann on a sunny rock table. I let the moments pass listening to flowing water, soaking up sun, with no pressure to do anything immediate. I can feel my batteries charging, I’m storing energy for use in my work and daily life. I can feel that this is the source of balance in my life. Ann shows up looking immersed in peace as well, and together we continue right past the “dam” without seeing it. When we turn around for lack of time, another hiker points out the structure that is now a small stonework waterfall. Once more, we return to the trailhead in the dark.
brown=past, green=future
Ann maps our campsites
