Friday, March 27, 2009

Friday after work: Ventana Canyon

We've lived in Tucson since July 2007, and finally, today, I got around to discovering Ventana Canyon for myself. On this beautiful, unseasonably cool spring day, I wanted to go for a hike/jog...

...and so I took only a water bottle and my cellphone--these are from the phone's camera:



I only ran the lower part of the trail, since sunset wasn't far off--this part of the trail switchbacks over a creek that flows for most of the year...a good micro-climate for cottonwoods:

...a few more steep miles past this point leads to a natural 'window'/arch in the rocks at 7000 feet...but you need more than an afternoon after work to make it all the way, so that'll have to wait...
All this, only a fifteen minute drive from our part of the city (incidentally, named one of the best trail-running towns in the country)--a trail that starts at the employees' parking lot of the very posh Loew's Ventana Canyon Resort (!) and quickly leads into no-dogs-allowed wilderness. (It's a bighorn mountain sheep protected area, thus the canine restriction.)
In the middle of all the Tucson budget and unemployment woes, the natural surroundings are a balm for the workweek-soul...

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