I was curious – what, exactly, was the ‘Catalina Ravine’ labeled on the map west of the Biosphere Road? The elevation contours don’t seem to indicate much – and I don’t remember seeing anything from 77 – but it is a named feature…

I had barely turned onto the 4wd road leading to Catalina Tank before deciding that hiking would be faster than driving – a good decision since the road quickly ended at an old gate. The hard sand of a small wash made for easy walking – but, with Catalina Tank in view, a fence blocked the way. I wondered if the fence enclosed the tank?

Heading south it didn’t take too long to figure out that the fence was doing more than enclosing the tank – with no gate in sight and the fence stretching away towards the mountains I finally crawled under at a wide wash and began to swing around towards the ravine.

From Wikipedia: “A ravine is a landform narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streamcutting erosion. Ravines are typically classified as larger in scale than gullies, although smaller than valleys.”

Walking Catalina Ravine didn’t really shed any light on why the name was added to the map, it was lovely in places – but, to me, it was largely indistinguishable from countless other small drainages in the area. Soon enough the tank appeared – a picture, admire the view, (still no gate in sight) under the fence, back along the small wash and back to the truck…