Alison and I found the end of Summer on top of Blackett's Ridge - sitting in the Tucson city lights we - for the first time in months - had to bundle up in our jackets, gloves and hats to stay and enjoy the view.

It seemed like a long summer this year - but don't all Tucson summers seem to stretch on and on? This summer I made more time to venture into the higher reaches of the Santa Catalina Mountains - beautiful places...

The lower miles of the Red Ridge Trail - where it makes its way from the East Fork of the Canada del Oro down to the Canada del Oro proper - were new to me. This section of trail obviously gets less use than the upper section of Red Ridge and on my first trip there were a few spots that seemed a bit obscure... On this particular trip I took the CDO Trail back to the Summit Parking area.

For some time I have been curious about the lower stretches of the Knagge Trail - beyond the cabin ruins and old mine the obvious trail currently ends about 2 miles down - I thought with some time/gps/map surely I could find useful traces of this old path... I cross-crossed the supposed location multiple times as I headed down to the South Fork of Edgar Canyon but is seems time and nature have erased this particular trail.

The best storms waited until later in the summer this year - it was a joy to hike the Red Ridge/Oracle Ridge loop again this year with Alison and Traci - Oracle Ridge was exploding with flowers/green and the clouds rolled over the ridge as we hiked - an amazing day!

The Brush Corral Trail was new to me - the Brush Corral/Brush Corral Shortcut 'loop' was nice enough - but the part of the trail that I will be back to visit is below the junction of these trails - fire has burned across the ridges and the now faint trail heads down and out of the range, spectacular!

The 'Keebler Tree' on the Crystal Springs trail - this area was lovely and fabulously overgrown, this trail always seems to take a bit more effort than I expect...

A view of the clouds and a reflection on the car - taking a break at Molino Basin on the way up to the Box Camp Trail - while climbing back up the Box Camp Trail from the East Fork/Box Camp junction I watched the clouds for hours - finally, at 7000', I enjoyed my first storm of the summer...

CM