There was steady traffic on the highway and every trailhead I could see had at least one car - on such a lovely day it was inspiring to see so many people out enjoying the mountain. I parked at the [link slug="sunset-trailhead"/] and took the unsigned 1918 Trail - the trail runs along a stream near the highway and into the Bear Wallow area - never far from the road, but so beautiful with the fall colors that the sounds of the cars are easily forgotten.
Eventually I turned onto Bigelow Road - steady running to the top - back the way I came. 1918 and Bigelow Road to Mount Bigelow and back the same way - 7 miles, +/- 930' elevation gain/loss (round-trip).
The changing leaves have been featured in several recent articles - both have some suggestions about places to go to see the colors: Autumn leaves flush Catalinas with color, Douglas Kreutz, Arizona Daily Star - and Hittin' the Trails 4 You: Mt. Lemmon's Fall color hot spots, Jeff Beamish, KVOA.com.
Another great post to with some fall colors in the Santa Catalina Mountains is Sirena's Happy 5th Anniversary! - congratulations to Sirena on her blog's 5th anniversary! Sirena's Wanderings is a GREAT source of information and inspiration!
Road construction is on-going - on the weekends there are no delays but areas like the one below (with the pavement removed) located just down-mountain from the [link slug="ridgeline-parking-pullout"/] are likely to cause delays on the weekdays...
