From the Phoneline Trail Sabino Canyon sounded like a raging river – as we descended we wondered if there was a chance that we wouldn’t feel comfortable crossing – but down by the canyon the flow didn’t seem as impressive and the crossing was fine – we enjoyed the cool knee deep water.
A glance at the USGS Guage for Sabino Canyon shows that we were lucky to see higher water levels – the storm fed flow peaked late on the 19th and quickly diminished.
We met a friend and co-worker who was doing a night time Bear Canyon Loop – there was a small breeze in the parking lot, but up on the Phoneline Trail in many of the twists and turns it was still – and quite warm…
The Box Spring Trail appears on many maps – but it is fading back into the mountain. The sign that used to mark the junction with the Box Camp Trail is gone, the start of the trail has been obscured and the original track no longer exists.
The first part of the Box Spring trail is very overgrown, but it is still somewhat reasonable up to a small (rather nice) saddle (where you leave the trail for Brinkley Point) – below the saddle you can follow a path and cairns, but the trail quickly becomes much more aggressively overgrown, the footing loose and the route obscure. Eventually the route starts to follow a rugged drainage.
Sections of the drainage are filled with debris, part very overgrown and occasionally it is filled with Poison Ivy – barely a route except for the cairns I suppose… but the reward…
Sabino Canyon! The Arizona Daily Star reported today that Sabino Creek stops flowing 3 weeks earlier than last 2 years at Sabino Dam – but here, high in Sabino Canyon, there is clear water, pools and flow…
Status update for 4/14 to 4/27 (all updates are currently available here). There were no deaths during this period. Five lambs have been observed and another video of the lambs has been released. The update makes some notes about fire regarding management options, fires that have burned in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness and it’s impact on habitat – interesting for the perspective and historical details.
The Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club has sent and published letters expressing concern over the Bighorn reintroduction to Arizona Game and Fish and the Coronado National Forest. I thought the questions about habitat that both letters raised were interesting – they note the decision to go ahead with this project even though much of the habitat the sheep were released into was rated ‘poor to fair’ and inability of the project to address development around the mountain which may have been a factor in their disappearance. Also mentioned in the letters are potential impacts to the Wilderness values of the area and a request for information on/evaluation of the impacts on the Bighorn Sheep populations where individuals have been removed for translocation. The letters and some brief reactions are covered in this article from the Arizona Daily Star – in the article a representative from Arizona Game and Fish states that “a decision has not been made yet on whether to proceed with plans to release another 30 bighorn sheep in the Catalinas this fall”.
The annual restrictions on off-trail travel in the Bighorn Management Area ended April 30 – it will be interesting to see if hikers begin to report seeing the sheep and if that has an impact on public opinion, although the temperatures in Tucson at the moment are less than ideal for exploring the Pusch Ridge area…
On Thursday, May 1, there was a public meeting about the Recreation Concept Plan for Sabino Canyon – Tucson News Now reports that “Several issues were brought up for discussion, including parking improvements, an eco-friendly shuttle system, new shuttle routes, extended bicycle hours and improved signage along the trails and expanding the current visitor’s center, among many other sggestions.” The article also notes that comments can be emailed to Linda Stamer at [email protected] until 6/1.
A time lapse of the April 15 Lunar Eclipse from the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter by Adam Block was featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Canceled race leaves many Mt. Lemmon marathon runners without refunds – at least some entrants to the canceled The Mount Lemmon Marathon have not received refunds of their entry fees. A May 2 message on the Mount Lemmon Marathon notes the the event will no longer operate under the current owner and states:
“As of today the MLM staff is working on getting refunds set to send out. We do apologize it has taken so long. The operating costs of this events are very high and there are a number of event costs that we could not recoup. Our goal is to have refunds sent out with in two weeks. Do to the expenses involved, registration cmpany costs, medals, ins. etc. the refund amount will reflect some of the operational losses.”
4/30 – Reports from KGUN9 and Tucson New Now of an injured hiker being helped by PCSD and Rural Metro – I did not see any additional details but in the KGUN9 article the picture shows cars parked at Hairpin Turn near the base of the mountain.
We hiked in on the Molino Basin and Sycamore Reservoir Trails to Sycamore Reservoir and then camped a short distance up Bear Canyon – great weather for camping in the canyon and plenty of great spots to set up.
It had been cloudy all day – but the clouds started to clear just before sunset letting the nearly full moon brighten the night – I hiked out to the Bear Canyon, East Fork and Sycamore Reservoir Trail Junction and then up onto the nearby hills to take advantage of the light – eventually I headed back to camp and enjoyed the company.
