I recently heard from the Summit Hut Book Buyer that both Todd Martin’s Arizona Technical Canyoneering and Tyler Williams’ Canyoneering Arizona are both out-of-print. Of the two Arizona Technical Canyoneering is more relevant to the Santa Catalina Mountains covering 6 different routes – Canyoneering Arizona only contains limited information on Sabino Canyon in the Revised Edition.
It is worth noting that Canyoneering Arizona was first published in 1998 when canyoneering was exponentially less popular than it is today!
I don’t know if either these books are going to be reprinted – or if new editions might be forthcoming…
Arizona Technical Canyoneering. First Edition 2007. December 2016.Canyoneering Arizona – Revised Version – 2005. December 2016.Canyoneering Arizona – Original 1998 Version. December 2016.
Sabino Canyon is a beautiful destination but it is often crowded on any weekend with (even vaguely) good weather. Holidays can be particularly busy – to help with the congestion from Dec. 26 to Jan. 2 there will be a shuttle from Udall Park to Sabino Canyon. The shuttle will start at Udall Park at 9:15 and run each hour – the last shuttle will leave Sabino Canyon at 4:45. The shuttle can carry 40 people and it could be a nice way to avoid a packed and frustrating experience in the Sabino Canyon Parking Lot!! I believe this is the first year this service has been offered – it might be best to keep a little flexibility in your plans just-in-case the shuttle is full or not quite on time… Free holiday shuttle could help ease Sabino Canyon’s parking hassles | Government and politics | tucson.com – Arizona Daily Star, Free Electric Shuttle To and From Sabino Canyon During Holiday Break – City of Tucson
Redington Pass Shooting Closure Extended, One Area Reopens – Coronado National Forest: The shooting closures that has been in place since 2013 has been extended and slightly modified. The area was originally closed while trash and debris related to shooting were removed and the extension is designed to help the area to recover. From the Forest Service:
According to the closure, shooting will be prohibited within 0.6 miles on either side of the road from the western boundary of the Forest to mile marker 6.3. The previous closure prohibited recreational shooting from mile marker 5 to mile marker 7.
Raven euthanized after caught in leg trap in Redington Pass – KVOA.com: A rather sad story about a Raven found in a baited leg hold trap in the Redington Pass area who was eventually euthanized – these traps are illegal on public lands as is trapping Ravens.
Authorities need help after deer poached in Catalina Mountains – Tucson News Now: “A $1,000 reward is being offered for tips leading to the arrest of the person who killed a Whitetail deer in the Santa Catalina Mountains last month. The Arizona Game and Fish Department said the animal, an untagged Whitetail buck, was found Oct. 9 off Forest Service Road 4496 in the Charoleau Gap area.”
A Career of Her Own: Edith Shreve at the Desert Laboratory – University of Arizona Campus Repository: Janice Bowers wrote about Forrest Shreve, who worked at the Desert Labratory in Tucson, in the book A Sense of Place - The Life and Work of Forrest Shreve – she also authored this article about Edith Shreve. The article is from 1986 but I had not come across it until recently – it is an interesting read and includes a picture of Edith Shreve during an expedition into the Santa Catalina Mountains in the early 1900s! The name Shreve will be familiar to dedicated Santa Catalina Mountain hikers because of Shreve Saddle on the Sycamore Reservoir Trail.
In November, after the release of 20 more Bighorn into the Santa Catalina Mountains, Arizona Game and Fish declared that the population has reached a sustainable level and that:
No more releases are planned
monthly updates about the project will no longer be released
not all of the sheep released had GPS collars attached
Mountain Lions that kill Bighorns will no longer be pursued
AZGF Research Projects are scheduled to end in June 2017
I suppose at this point it will be many years until we know if this project was truly successful…
Rescues/Accidents/Incidents including information from the SARCI Newsletter:
Wilderness of Rocks 10/1/2016: Hiker stranded by darkness is found off trail near the Wilderness of Rocks/Lemmon Rock junction
Windy Point 10/6/2016: An injury requiring a carry out of the patient
Sutherland Trail 10/8/2016: A hiker on one of the many social trail off the Sutherland Trail in the Catalina State Park area became exhausted and was carried out
Sabino Canyon 10/13/2016: Hikers requested help after hiking down canyon past the guaging station and were helped out
Aspen Trail 10/15/2016: Hikers lost the trail but were able to find the trail and reach their vehicle before help arrived
Butterfly Trail 10/17/2016: A biker on the Butterfly Trail lost the trail in the Novio Spring area and was extracted.
Snow hiding in the shadow of Mount Bigelow. December 2016.
Smoke from the Bigelow Prescribed Burn – taken from Speedway Boulevard in Tucson. December 2016.
The Forest Service was careful to publish information about the Bigelow Prescribed Burn well in advance – but even so it was hard not to be alarmed by the impressive amount of smoke that the fire was producing, easily visible from Tucson it generated plenty of questions and it was hard not to wonder if the controlled burn had somehow gone awry…
A small pine along the Bigelow Trail in the Bigelow Controlled Burn area – many of even the smaller pines still had green needles and appear to have survived the fire. December 2016.
Hiking up the Bigelow Trail from the Bigelow Trailhead the impact of the fire was obvious – black ground, black tree trunks. I wasn’t until I reached the edge of the burn that I could really tell just how impressively effective the fire had been – fairly dense grass and shrubs cover the hill on one side / on the other the ground is remarkably clear.
Grass and shrub covered hillside on the left of the trail, burned – and cleared – ground on the right. December 2016.
We visited Kellogg Mountain just before the controlled burn – I wondered what impact the fire might have on the impressive thicket of New Mexico Locust growing near the top – but near Kellogg the Bigelow Trail was the edge of the fire and Kellogg Mountain was untouched.
Looking up at Kellogg Mountain from the Bigelow Trail – Kellogg was untouched by the Bigelow Controlled Burn. December 2016.
A brilliant sunset over Tucson from Point 6512 above Bear Canyon. December 2016.
The Bug Spring Trail from the Lower Green Mountain Trailhead provides an easy way to access ridge south of Bear Canyon – there are hints of a path on, or near, the top of the ridge, but only hints – if you follow the ridge for any distance you are bound to be pushing thru the brush and working around obstacles – you can continue past Point 6512, but it may be worth sitting, enjoying the ridge and waiting for the sunset…
Point 6512 above Bear Canyon – track from the Lower Green Mountain Trailhead. December 2016.Looking across Bear Canyon to Lizard Rock. December 2016.Sunset light south of the Santa Catalina Mountains. December 2016.
Any history of mining has several inherent problems. For one thing the usual practice of relying upon relying upon contemporary or primary sources turns topsy-turvy. Such sources are often suspect, since mine owners and other interested parties deliberately sought to enhance the value of their properties, promoting them to raise capital for their development or to attract a purchaser.
[Doctor Scudder] had dreams of a chicken ranch. By looking in a Spanish dictionary, he came up with a name for the beautiful area. “Listen! Campo Bonito. Did you ever hear anything equal to that?”
Later Captain Burgess sold mining claims to the well known scout, William F. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill. Cody’s fame was well earned, but not for his sound investiments. Perhaps Burgess knew this and took advantage of his old friend.
Camp Bonito never produced the fortune that Cody hoped for – not a unique, or even uncommon, story – this concise summary from Islands in the Desert (p.132) seems relevant:
another fact of frontier life, which was that profits were most commonly sought through buying and selling mining properties, rather than by developing them.
Freshly worked trail and a recently added sign on the Cody trail where a side trail splits off to the High Jinks Ranch. September 2016.
The High Jinks was another Cody mine that never produced the riches he had hoped for – the property, a National Historic Site, is located above Camp Bonito just off the Cody Trail, the route of the Arizona Trail – see the High Jinks Ranch for more information.
Looking back on the High Jinks area from the Cody Trail. September 2016.
