Late afternoon shadows, sunset and a recently placed Fire Restrictions sign in Pima Canyon.
Pima Canyon Trail – 5/2/2018
pima canyon trail
Pima Canyon Trail, Flowers! – 4/26/2018
On the one hand the flowers last year were much more impressive – on the other hand even a ‘less impressive’ year still has an incredible number of flowers to see! Photos from a hike up the Pima Canyon Trail to the dam where the only water remaining is in small pools hiding near the cattails…
Pima Canyon Trail to the First Dam – 1/23/2017
January 2017 can’t quite rival January 2015 for weather in Pima Canyon – in 2015 snow fell low into Pima Canyon collecting on the tops of the Saguaros and making sections of the trail a snowy tunnel – but the weather this year has put a wonderful amount of water in motion and it was spectacular to see water covering and flowing down canyon from the first canyon crossing on the Pima Canyon Trail.
Lightning, Pima Canyon Trail – 7/30/2016
Pima Canyon Trail in the Snow, 1/1/2015
Winter weather forecasts have disappointed many times – but the New Year’s Day conditions lived up to the hype – snow covering all of the Santa Catalina Mountains and blanketing the desert – what a fantastic start to 2015!
At 10AM there was snow covering everything around the Iris Dewhirst Pima Canyon Trailhead – all wintery and white! There were quite a few cars in the parking lot and the first section of the trail was filled with people enjoying the snow – the views looking up the canyon were amazing!
After the first canyon crossing snow covered plants hung over the trail – not hard to push thru, but cold!
The footsteps in the snow disappeared before the dam…
After the dam the snow becomes subtly ever deeper and the trail becomes a little harder to find – even in good weather this section has fewer visitors – I pause occasionally to puzzle out a path.
The shoe prints ended over a mile ago – now there are deer tracks in the snow, it doesn’t take long to realize the the tracks are following the trail, for a time I simply follow them – the deer clearly knows this section of trail better than I do.
A sound draws my attention across the canyon and I turn to watch ice falling from rock walls – the deer tracks plunge steeply off the trail towards the bottom of the canyon – at the time I didn’t think anything of it, but in retrospect maybe they know the conditions better than I do… Minutes later the trackless trail crosses the canyon and I loose it on the hillside above, it takes a few zig-zags up and down the hillside to find it again. A few more minutes of trail and I am left standing in the bottom of the snow covered canyon trying to remember if the trail crosses onto the hillside above or stays near the canyon bottom – time to turn around.
Lower on the trail the conditions have changed – the plants that were covered in snow earlier are now standing straight again – wet, but without a hint of snow.
Pima Canyon Trail. 10.9 miles, 3000′ of elevation gain and loss.