Around the east side of Mt Lemmon

Every now and then in the summer, Sweetums and I go down to Tucson and then drive up Mt Lemmon to escape the heat. It can be 30 degrees cooler in Summerhaven, near the top, than it is down in Tucson. On that drive, we approach Mt Lemmon from the north, go around the west side, and the road up is on the south side. Anyway, for the past couple of years I've been thinking that I should drive around the east side of Mt Lemmon, just to see what's there.

The San Pedro river flows along the east side of Mt Lemmon and has formed this valley.

Here's a super-panorama of the valley.

It's the rainy season, and there were storms around.

You start out going south on Reddington Road. According to Google maps, after a while its name alternates between Reddington Road and N San Pedro River Road. Also, sometimes it's spelled Redington and sometimes Reddington. When it gets to Tucson, the name changes to E Tanque Verde Road. It's a dirt road, but it had been graded recently and most of it was in very good shape (though I still wouldn't drive a minivan on it, and there were a few rough spots).

I saw some Horse Lubber grasshoppers. They are very colorful, so I didn't eat any. Well, I wasn't that hungry anyway.

The road got up around 4000 feet. There was a storm trying to follow me, and with the altitude and the storm's shade, it got down into the 80's. Very nice. I got sprinkled on a few times, usually when I stopped and got out to get some pictures.

This grassy meadow seems out of place. That's the Rincon Mountains in the background.

This place was very pretty, but you had to be moving by to see it all and how everything looked relative to everything else. I couldn't figure out how to take a picture of it.

Approaching Tucson from the southeast.

It was a pleasant, relaxing drive. I want to explore more around the San Pedro River some day. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2012_08_18

Pizza in Summerhaven

Suzanne has been wanting to make a trip to Summerhaven for a while. Things finally worked out and we went up there on Sunday. It was only about 91 when we started up the mountain. The temperature dropped to 60 by the time we got to Summerhaven. It was cloudy up there and rained a little now and then. It was a pleasant change.

There are lots of rock formations along the road to Summerhaven that I don't have pictures of yet. I finally got this one, though.

We didn't stop much on the way up because it was after lunch time and I was hungry and Suzanne wasn't going to eat anywhere but the Cookie Cabin in Summerhaven. Their pizzas are OK. I think it's the atmosphere that Suzanne likes so much. Oh, and the cookies are good, and big. One of them is much more than I can eat.

The Cookie Cabin

After eating, we went over to The Living Rainbow Gift Shop. There's a lot of stuff in there that I've never seen anywhere else. The prices aren't bad considering that it's at the top of a mountain.

The Living Rainbow Gift Shop

The gift shop has some unusual items for sale.

I tried to take pictures that I haven't taken before, but the same things always catch my eye. I guess that if I really want to get something different up there, I'll have to leave the road.

Sometimes, Photomatix does an excellent job of handling people that move around between exposures.

It was a very pleasant and relaxing trip. The constant stopping to take a few pictures and then getting back in the car has made me aware that my T2i doesn't keep very good time. It seems like I just synched it to GPS time, but a lot of the pictures are not goetagged in quit the right spot. It looks like the camera clock is running a little slow. I moved several of them, but it's a tedious process. I didn't use the geotagging tool to adjust the time because I didn't notice it until after I had uploaded them and because ... well, it's a long involved story. Click below to see all of the pictures.

2010_08_29

The Catalina Highway

The speed limit on much of the Catalina Highway is 35 mph, with many 30 mph curves as it winds its way to the top of Mt. Lemmon. It's a scenic drive, with lots of places to pull over and enjoy the view. I've tried to take pictures from those viewpoints a few times in the past, but had difficulties for one reason or another. This past Sunday, I packed a lunch and all my gear and set out alone for Mt. Lemmon, determined to get all the pictures I wanted. I didn't quite get all I wanted, but I got enough to last a while.

When I started out, my plan was to stop and take pictures at every opportunity. That was a silly idea. There are places to stop about every two tenths of a mile. That makes for a lot of stops on a drive of over 20 miles.

One of the first pictures I took was of a trail that seemed to go straight up.

It was about 94 degrees when I left the suburbs and started up the mountain. The temperature usually drops about 30 degrees on the way to the top. I had a flannel shirt handy. Hey, the mid 60's is cold to us Valley residents.

There are some fancy houses up against the mountain.

That road is the Catalina Highway before it starts winding its way up the mountain.

The first few places I stopped to take pictures were pullouts for people that can't or won't go as fast as everybody else wants to. You know, tourists like me. At the first scenic view pullout I saw some bear-proof trash cans and realized I had forgotten bear repellant. I was just in Walgreen's in Tucson getting some chewing gum, too.

I'm in bear country. Still low enough for saguaros, though.

The scenic viewpoints have plaques with descriptions of the area's geology, biology, and history. I was taking pictures of them until I started to worry about my battery running down. It turns out I only took about 277 pictures, but I don't think the battery was fully charged. It got pretty low while I was downloading all those pictures. There were some fluffy clouds around, so a lot of the pictures are HDRIs. An HDRI is about the only way to have the landscape and clouds look good in the same picture (that I know of, but I'm just an amateur).

Some fluffy clouds.

The Seven Cataracts were dry.

At one of my stops, I looked down in a creek bed and saw several plants with yellow leaves. It seemed strange when it was so warm, but I guess it is mid October. Some trees in the Valley start putting out their spring leaves when they are about halfway through dropping their fall leaves.

It really is fall. In some places at least.

This is a very popular spot.

Looking back towards the parking area from the popular spot.

This is a popular view for pictures.

After a while I started feeling pretty hungry. I had driven by a nice looking picnic area not too long before, but I didn't want to backtrack. I saw a turn off that said something about a lake and decided to try that. Not too far ahead on that road, I could see a line of cars. Forget that. I stopped at the parking area for the Green Mountain Trail and walked along that trail until I was far enough from the road for some quiet. I found a comfortable rock and enjoyed my PB&J.

The view from my lunch rock.

There's a gift shop partway up the mountain. I stopped there to see if there was anything I needed. As I walked towards the door, an SUV full of screeching kids pulled up. I decided to get back on the road.

A gift shop along the way.

Every other time that I've been on this road, I was in a minivan. I would see dirt roads going off this way and that, but I didn't dare take a minivan on them. This time I was in my truck, though. I followed one of the side roads around for a while. There were some really nice camping spots out there. Most were taken, though.

Woodsy camping spot.

The road to the woodsy camping spot.

I also hiked a few feet along the Butterfly trail. I was enjoying the scenery and listening to a hawk screeching as it flew nearby. I couldn't see it through the trees, though. Then I heard some loud cracking noises and wondered if some birds were engaged in aerial combat and the sound was their wings hitting each other. As I tried the find the hawk through the trees I noticed that the sound had become a continuous crunching noise, and it was behind me. As I turned, I finally recognized the sound as that of a tree falling. I looked uphill and could see some trees swaying up there where one had just fallen. There are a lot of dead trees on the mountain from a forest fire a few years ago. I've read that dead pines can fall unexpectedly and so you shouldn't put anything (car, tent) where a tree could hit it if it fell. There was only a very light breeze when this tree fell, so don't think they won't fall on your tent if the wind is calm.

More fall colors.

By the time I got to Summerhaven, most of the tourists had left for the day. The cookie shop was open, but I wasn't in the mood for a cookie (they're very good, BTW). I drove around town a little and then headed down. I figured I would get to the windy viewpoint near sunset and get some pictures of Tucson at night. I've been wanting to do that for a few years.

A rare sight; an empty parking lot in Summerhaven.

This is a great spot from which to watch the sunset.

Tucson as night falls.

Click below to see all of the pictures. There are a lot.

Mt_Lemmon_2009_10_18