It has been sooooo hot lately. Down here on the desert floor, it feels like an oven, but June is our hottest month, so it is to be expected. Our daytime maximum temperature for Tucson has been over 100 degrees F. every single day since June began. Hot enough for you? We’re used to it though, and everything is air-conditioned. Nevertheless, it’s nice once in a while to get up into the high country. We’re fortunate to be surrounded by high mountains, so it’s easy to get away for a change of pace up in the cool air.

Jake, his wife Erica, and I met and car-pooled to the top of Mt. Lemmon. This oasis has a parking lot at 9,100 feet. By the time we shouldered our day packs, heavy with water, it was 5:20 a.m. This piece will be more of a photo-essay than a story, because the scenery was so beautiful. This was to be an upside-down climb – we started high, walked downhill for hours to reach our summit, then walked back uphill to finish.

The next photo is a view of Samaniego Peak, the first glimpse we had. In the photo, we are standing at 8,500 feet, and the summit (7,700 ft.) is still miles away.

The trail we were on slowly lost elevation, passing through meadows and forest, and eventually reaching its lowest point at 7,120 feet. It then followed a long ridge-top, bringing us closer to our peak.

There were countless ups and downs along the trail, but, bit by bit, the peak became nearer.

Finally, we reached a saddle only 400 feet below the peak. Now, we had a good idea of the rocky nature of the summit.

We had decided not to drop down to Walnut Spring, a common jumping-off point for the final climb to the summit. Instead, we stayed on the ridge and headed north through the brush. It was pretty thick in places, but what’s a climb without a bit of bushwhacking. We saw a lot of bees on tall flowering bushes, and were careful not to annoy them too badly. At the top, all that remained to be done was to climb up one huge boulder.

It had taken us four hours to reach the summit, nearly all of that time spent on a trail and going downhill. Among some nearby rocks, we found a large plastic tube which contained the register. The most recent visits had been two months earlier, and then four months before that. Some distance farther down the ridge sat a feature called Mule Ears, a technical climb. In this next photo, they show up as two light-colored pillars on the middle right side.

From where we sat eating lunch, it looked like a long way back to our starting point. This next picture shows that. We had to drop back down to the broad ridge in front of us, then follow it to the right over to the skyline, then hang a left and follow the ridge along the skyline to the high area on the far left.

It was 10:00 a.m. and time to go. We thrashed our way downhill with a gravity assist, arriving back at the trail in good time. All we had to do now was put one foot in front of the other and keep going. It was still not too hot, so it felt pretty good. We passed a hillside covered in ferns.

In a grove of pine trees, we saw one that had died. It had enough branches on it that it would have afforded an unlimited supply of firewood.

There were some nice vistas of trees and sky.

We had dandy views in every direction. Here is a shot of Pusch Ridge, with the wooded Mt. Kimball on the left.

In the last few miles, we came upon several horned lizards (many people call them horny toads). They let us approach so closely that Jake and I were actually able to stroke the back of one of them, although it hissed at Jake.

Finally, after being out 9 1/2 hours, we arrived back at the parking lot – my dogs were barkin’. Plenty of others were there, enjoying the cool mountaintop. Two more small projects completed our day – a visit to the summit of Mt. Lemmon, at 9,153 feet,

and a short walk to tag the highest corner of the Pusch Ridge Wilderness. That done, it was an easy drive down the mountain and into the broiler-oven of the city. It was 107 degrees, but with only 1% relative humidity (honest!) it was a dry heat. We in Tucson are lucky to have such an oasis close by, where it is a full 30 degrees cooler each day.

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