Arizona National Trail—Passage 7 Scouting Trip (April 12, 2016)

Las Cienegas area…

I could not access the southern end of Passage 7 as a 4 wheel drive vehicle was required to get into the Twin Tanks / Lake Road area… so I drove on northward to Sahuarita Road Trailhead.  It was late in the day and I needed to find safe parking.

Weather was threatening and so I took the next day (Monday) off to do banking and take care of other important issues.  I did walk the southern side of the trail from Sahuarita a little just before sunset on 4/11, and made the longer hike on the northern side this morning (4/12).

This is a lovely section of the trail, maybe the prettiest I have seen so far.  I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

I hiked out at 10:45am and returned at 12:55pm.  I can’t yet measure miles, but for now I am walking out one hour, and then returning to my van.  My left shin below my knee hurt a little when I began but soon stopped.

I found this humorous, I met Rob and Nick this week south of here, so it was odd to see their names on the Trail Log.

I like that events are posted at the trailheads.

Some critters must really like these cactus.

Spotted a little mushroom growing under on of the plants.

A packrat lives here.

Tunnel under Highway 83.  The trail book said there was a rock cairn here marking the trail but I only found it on the return trip… I put a couple rocks back on top that had been knocked off. But the trail is pretty well worn and not hard to follow, anyway..

Tiny baby cactus on left.

I found this on the trail…

I heard a bird, new to me, singing in those treetops.  A lovely song.  I believe it was a Curve-billed Thrasher… a website says it is a “Fantastic singer.”

After the two hour hike, I drove on to Gabe Zimmerman Trail head on Marsh Station Road.  According to the guide book, page 89, Gabriel “Gabe” Zimmerman, for whom the trailhead is named, was among six people killed when a gunman opened fire at a community event in Tucson, held by then U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) on January 8, 2011.  At that time Zimmerman was an aid to the congresswoman.  This area celebrates his life- and those of everyone who was affected by that tragedy.

The AZT crosses through Cienega Creek Nature Preserve, a riparian corridor that supports a diverse population of plants, trees, insects, fish and reptiles, and mammals.  AZT hikers must stay on the trail through this area.

The trailhead is nice with a vault toilet (no t.p.) and picnic table and shelter, and a trashcan.  Passage 7 ends here.

Best part of the hike was the pretty bird of course and getting run over by a dust devil, and the wonderful smells of all the blooming flowers.  Wonderful, wonderful.

Last: Passage 6 – Las Colinas

Next: Passage 8 - Rincon Valley

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Arizona National Trail—Passage 6 Scouting Trip (April 11, 2016)

Las Colinas area

According to the guidebook, page 83:  This beautiful passage rolls across the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains with grand vistas to the west and the Empire Mountains to the east.  Mount Wrightson dominates the south, while views of the majestic Rincon Mountains to the north foretell adventures ahead.

The roads in looked less than desirable at FR 4072 and 4064, and so I turned around and went on up to FR 231 that goes to Rosemont Junction.  The area is kind of strange, has that spooky feeling, like I didn’t want to stop there.  One of the first things I saw was an OHV kiosk where a woman had an archery target set up right in front of the kiosk.  I wanted to check the map and drove that way and she walked up and removed the target.  The map itself had been shot by arrows a number of times and was rather useless.  I drove on thinking I could find Rosemont Junction and the trailhead.  I also passed a couple of shooting areas where people target shoot.  One of the areas had a large group of people there, maybe 20 or more.

There were very strange warning signs everywhere. The guidebook, page 84 says:  Rosemont Copper has plans to develop an open-pit copper mine in the northern region of the Santa Rita Mountains.  If the U.S. Forest Service approves their proposal, mining operations would severely affect the current Arizona Trail route.  Trail professionals and the ATA have designed a reroute of approximately 10 miles that will be implemented if the mine becomes reality.

Strange signs.

In spite of the signs that said not to take photographs, I could not resist.  Loved the roots of this three, hanging on the side of the hill.

I drove up and down all the roads looking for the trailhead.

And I took a few more photos.

Strange signs.

Now this was the strangest thing I saw in there.  What is it?  Looks black like coal. Did not look natural to me.  What is that???

I had to back up to take this photo… almost missed this beautiful Agave (Century Plant) beginning to shoot up.  Must have been about 8’ high.

Finally, I spotted the AZT signpost… almost missed it completely.  There was no place to pull off the road.  I stopped in the middle of the road for these photos.  I believe I was on FR 4064 then, as it was very steep after this point to get back up to the highway.  The area I had refused to drive down when I came from the south.

I was tired of this section.  It  might be more fun to walk through but driving it was not a picnic at all.  Back on the highway, weather was still threatening… so I left.

I drove on northward looking for the next trailhead I could get to.   I passed up the Lakes Road as it required a high clearance four-wheel-drive vehicle.

From there, I drove on past most of Passage 7 to Sahuarita Road where there was a place to park for the night. I guess there are plans to build a larger parking lot/trailhead here.  There were no other suitable places before that point.

Last: Passage 5.2 – KY Camp-NB

Next: Passage 7, Las Cienegas

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Thank you for doing your usual Amazon shopping using my affiliate link.

Help me a little if you can by donating to my equipment fund for the Arizona Trail hike, in the Fall 2016.  I promise to pay it forward.  There is a PayPal donation button in the top right corner, but I realize people using phone may not see that so I am repeating the button below. You can see a list of gear I need at http://swankiewheels.blogspot.com/p/wish-list.html .

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Contribute to Equipment for the Arizona Trail Hike.