On Wednesday, December 19, I joined the Southern Arizona Hiking Club (SAHC) for a climb of Ragged Top, a craggy peak in the Silver Bell Mountains west of Tucson. Ragged Top has 1357 feet of topographic prominence. I first noticed Ragged Top on my climb of Silver Bell Peak in November 2016. I knew then I would try to visit it someday.
I drove us into the Ironwood Forest National Monument on primitive but passable roads and parked just below the northeast face of Ragged Top. Ragged Top is quite imposing in appearance with complex steep buttresses of rock separated by shadowy narrow gullies. But we knew there was a reasonable route up, so we started with high expectations of success.
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