Canyons and courtyards

Tucson, AZ

Today I stayed relatively close to home after being on the road yesterday.

The first place I headed was the Sabino Canyon Recreational Area in the Coronado National Forest in the Santa Catalina Mountains. There is a lot of history in this canyon which goes almost 4 miles into the mountains. As early as 1200 AD, Hohokam Indians built dams on the creek for use in irrigation and for generations the area has been used for recreation and agriculture. In the 1930’s 9 bridges were built at various points over the creek to allow easier access up the canyon and hiking trails and picnic areas brought thousands of visitors. So many visitors, in fact, that in 1978 the National Forest Service restricted private cars in the area and started running trams into the canyon to help maintain the area.

So that’s how I got up to the end of the canyon today. And given the recent rain and snow in the mountains, the creek was flowing over all but one of the bridges along the canyon and hiking was pretty much out of the question for anyone without proper footwear. The trams could plow through the fast moving water on the bridges and some hikers with waders or just by rolling up their pants and taking off their shoes make the hike, but I wasn’t about to freeze my feet when a tram did a perfectly fine job of getting me from point A to point B. I actually did hike down two tram stops from the top, which didn’t involve any bridge crossings and walked along the creek for a bit. The sun was warm and it was very quiet except for the various bird songs along the way. It was a beautiful way to spend the morning.

In the pictures you can see some of the boulders are of grey stone which is a little different from the rest. This is because these boulders were thrown down into the creek by an earthquake early in the 1900’s.

Then it was over to a “historic oasis in downtown Tucson”. Old Town Artisans is a city block in the historic Presidio area of downtown that has been converted into various artisan shops with a lovely courtyard cantina where I stopped for a very late lunch. I wandered through the really nice shops with some quality tourist items, primarily of Mexican and western themes. I picked up some prickly pear and champagne jelly. No art.

Then it was back home to enjoy some sun and the late afternoon happy hour at the Cantina.

Tomorrow the plan is to be up and out early to do a tour through Tombstone, and Bisbee in south eastern Arizona