Mount Lemmon in the Fall / Driving up the Catalina Highway / October 19, 2013
October is a beautiful time to visit Southern Arizona. The heat from the summer has finally started to fade away, the monsoon season is over, and there are plenty of sunny days to enjoy being outside. Despite the beautiful weather, I was starting to feel a little homesick whenever I thought about what I was missing back home in Iowa…not the cold temperatures, but the fall colors! Coffee shops were advertising pumpkin spice lattes and clothing stores were stocked with cute sweaters, hats, and mittens, and advertising all around said “Fall is here!” But the weather still felt much more like summer. However, we knew that all we needed to do was take a drive up to Mount Lemmon in the fall!
We decided to take a trip up the Catalina Highway, a 26-mile road that takes you from the Tucson foothills up to Mt. Lemmon, at 8000 feet above sea level. It’s like a road that takes you from summer to fall! We had done this twice together already: when I visited with my
family in 2012, we spent Thanksgiving day on top of the mountain, hiking and having a picnic lunch, and at the beginning of September we drove part way up to do some short hikes for
letterboxes.
It just so happened to be “International Letterboxing Week,” a week where boxers “compete” for finding the most letterboxes in one week. We put in a good effort between our trip to Albuquerque the past weekend and short hikes throughout the week. But sadly we couldn’t compete with people out East, where there’s so many letterboxes you could trip over them. Oh well, we still enjoyed the extra incentive to get out and explore!
Easy Hikes on the top of Mount Lemmon
We drove up to the top of Mt. Lemmon to start with a 3 mile hike. As we got higher in elevation, the saguaros started to disappear and the scenery turned from dry desert to pine and birch trees. The higher we got, the lower the temperature dropped. If we were to visit in the winter, we would probably see snow up here and even be able to go skiing — if that was our type of thing.
The views at the top were vast and stunning. I love being able to see Tucson from high above. The visibility was pretty good today so we were also able to see other mountain ranges surrounding us — like the Rincons and the
Tucson mountains.
Letterboxing success
We were searching after one box that’s part of a series, and were able to find it without problem. Curtis had clues saved for another box that hadn’t been found in a long time, so he went looking for it not expecting to find anything. Lo and behold, after digging around, he was able to find it! We realized later that it had been missing for so long, the planter has it listed as “retired”, so we currently are holding onto the box until we receive word that we can replant it. It’s fun to think that Curtis was able to find a box that someone who we considered to be a “professional letterboxer” wasn’t able to find!
Summerhaven
No trip to Mt. Lemmon is complete without a visit to the Cookie Cabin! We rewarded ourselves with two giant cookies, one of them with ice cream and a massive tower of whipped cream on top. It’s safe to say we gained back any calories we may have lost from hiking! :p
The Catalina Highway
We made a few other stops on the way back down the mountain, and enjoyed the views as well. Just another weekend in our own paradise! I hope this inspires you to go on an adventure in your own town, or convinces you to take a trip up to Mount Lemmon in the Fall!
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