Santa Catalina Mountains Archives – Page 2 of 2

Table Tooth, Arizona, December 2018

December 24, 2018 by Paul McClellan Leave a Comment

On Monday, December 17, I joined the Southern Arizona Hiking Club for a climb of Table Tooth, a spire immediately east of Table Mountain in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness of the Santa Catalina Mountains. Table Tooth has only 320 feet of topographic prominence, but the “hike” proved to be challenging and it felt like a real mountaineering experience to me.

We climb towards Table Tooth and its east notch above left.

We left the Pima Canyon Trailhead before dawn with headlamps. Soon the early morning light allowed us to remove the headlamps and we entered Pima Canyon. This was my first excursion into Pima Canyon. The steep slopes above and in front of us lured my attention, but I had to pay attention to the rocky trail so as not to fall onto my face.

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Window Peak, Arizona, November 2016

November 30, 2016 by Paul McClellan 3 Comments

In November I hiked the Ventana Canyon Trail and climbed Window Peak in the Santa Catalina front range. This took me two attempts. On November 9 I hiked the Ventana Canyon Trail beyond its end to a scenic saddle on a ridge at about 6500 feet. I had hoped to climb Window Peak, but I ran out of time and energy to go that far and turned around after climbing 3600 feet. I returned two weeks later and succeeded.

Mount Kimball from the end of the Ventana Canyon Trail

The Ventana Canyon Trail ends at its junction with the Finger Canyon and Esperero Trails. I hiked Mount Kimball from Finger Rock Canyon a year and a half earlier and I savored the view of it rising far above me from this junction.

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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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