Arizona Archives – Page 28 of 32 – GlassMountains Trip Reports

Bicycling Mount Lemmon, Winter 2016

April 7, 2016 by Paul McClellan Leave a Comment

We have a view of Mount Lemmon to the north from our winter home in Tucson. Mount Lemmon, the high point of the Santa Catalina Mountains, has an elevation of 9157 feet. It rises about 6300 feet above our home. Linda and I have bicycled up and down the General Hitchcock Highway many times to various destinations on the mountain. This past winter we decided we should see how high up the mountain we could ride. After gradually reaching higher destinations over several rides we finally reached our goals.

The General Hitchcock Highway (aka Catalina Highway) climbs from near its base in Tucson to Summerhaven. Near Summerhaven a side road climbs through Ski Valley and past a gate to the gated and fenced Sky Center.

The General Hitchcock highway is a very popular bicycling route for local and visiting bicyclists. It is a great bicycling resource providing good workouts, fun descents, and excellent views of the Tucson Basin and surrounding mountains to the south.

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Mount Turnbull, Arizona, April 2016

April 5, 2016 by Paul McClellan 1 Comment

On April 2 several friends and I climbed Mount Turnbull, the highpoint of the Santa Teresa Mountains of Southeast Arizona. Mount Turnbull has 8282 feet of elevation and 3562 feet of prominence, the 15th most prominent peak in Arizona.

Mount Turnbull from US 70 north of Peridot, Arizona

That morning I met Eric Kassan, Richard Hensley, Kay Komuro, Maymay Au, and Fan in Peridot. Here we purchased San Carlos Apache Tribal Recreation Permits for our visit.

This was the fourth weekend I had joined Eric in his explorations of Arizona prominence peaks. This was an unexpected and fortuitous opportunity this winter season. This day’s adventure included long drives on primitive roads, climbing across and up steep, brushy, and rocky slopes, and climbing exposed rock slabs to reach a very scenic summit.

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Mae West Peaks, Arizona, March 2016

March 23, 2016 by Paul McClellan Leave a Comment

After climbing Swisshelm mountain on March 19, Eric Kassan, Rich Hensley, and I drove north late that afternoon to find our campsite for the evening and night. We hoped to get close to Mae West Peaks in the Little Dragoon Mountains, our goal for Sunday.

Eric wanted to explore an access option he had researched via Google Earth that would put us close to the east side of the peaks. We succeeded in getting near where we wanted to be, but we were unsure whether we were trespassing or not. We decided to camp out of view of any homes and take our chances that we would not be rounded up by landowners.

Mae West Peaks from near our campsite at sunrise

It was a very pleasant evening and night and we were ready to leave our cars by 6:45am Sunday. It was going to be much more pleasant to get an earlier start hiking this day than the previous day.

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Swisshelm Mountain, Arizona, March 2016

March 23, 2016 by Paul McClellan 1 Comment

Early in the morning of March 19 I met Eric Kassan and Rich Hensley in Wilcox, AZ. They had driven down from Las Vegas the previous evening. We planned to climb Dos Cabezas Peaks, but we were stopped by locked gates. So we climbed Swisshelm Mountain further south.

We drove to nearby Dos Cabezas and tried to get access to Dos Cabezas Peaks via the Mascot Mine Road. Eric had repeatedly phoned the landowner to request permission to use the road. But the owner never returned Eric’s calls. We hoped that perhaps the gate was open anyway. But we found it was locked with the same phone numbers posted that Eric had repeatedly called. We attempted another, longer, access road but found it also gated and locked. So we switched our attention to Swisshelm Mountain further south.

Swisshelm Mountain from the west near Elfrida

Swisshelm Mountain has 2025 feet of prominence, the 69th most prominent peak in Arizona. We first attempted to get access to it from the east which would have provided us an easier ascent. We spoke to the landowner near the start of his private road, but he refused us entry. So we drove to the west side of the mountain near Elfrida. From there we successfully gained access to the western slopes of Swisshelm Mountain.

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