Wednesday, December 10th, 2025
Wednesday, December 10th, 2025: Catalina, Hikes, Southeast Arizona.
I’m in transition between major phases of my life – in shock, depressed, functioning at a minimal level. Needing solitude, peace, and quiet to plumb the depths of my loss, not knowing how or when I’ll emerge and the next phase will begin – expecting only that it will come slowly and gradually.
A physical therapy appointment had been made long ago at a stand-alone facility in Tucson. I was hoping to do a challenging hike before the Tuesday appointment, with some pain afterward so the therapist would see how bad it can get. Expecting crowds on trails near the city, I waited until Monday for the hike.
I’ve visited Tucson regularly since moving to southwestern New Mexico 19 years ago – but knowing the trails would be heavily traveled, I’d never hiked there. The nearest trails start in the foothills of the Santa Catalina range on the northern edge of the city, via about 10 different trailheads established from east to west. Tucson would be nothing without this spectacular, 6,000-foot-tall wall of rock at its north, constantly changing color throughout the day.
I chose a trail that my brief online research suggested would be less popular. A glance at the map showed that it starts in a canyon at just over 3,000 feet, then climbs up the east ridge to a saddle before traversing farther up the ridge into the high country. I paid no further attention to distances, elevations, or neighboring trails, assuming that urban trails would be well signed, and I would just go as far as possible in the available time. My hope was to reach pine habitat – ideally ponderosa – but starting at 3,000 feet there really wasn’t much chance of that.
The high in town was forecast to reach the mid-70s, with clear skies. Trailhead parking, in this affluent neighborhood of contemporary mansions on gated streets, was the most deluxe I’d ever seen, with freshly marked spaces for about 40 vehicles and a brass drinking fountain at the entrance. At 9:45 on Monday morning it was almost 90 percent full, so I assume on weekends most hikers have to look elsewhere.
The city ends abruptly at the back yards of these mansions, which directly abut the National Forest. But it’s not just open space – it’s a federally-designated wilderness area, right next to these rich folks’ homes, where a sign claims that bighorn sheep populations are declining due to home building, and gas-powered leaf blowers and other implements spread stressful noise deep into supposedly wild habitat.
I’d never seen such a sharp, stark border between the natural and the artificial. The dissonance increased as I climbed the canyon and both military and commercial airplanes roared overhead. Our homes, our pets, our transport, our recreation – everything we do is at war with the wildlife in our natural habitats.
My hikes in Arizona near home range between about 4,000 and 10,000 feet. At the low end it’s similar to the Mojave Desert, and at the high end it’s similar to my local mountains, but with subtle differences I appreciate more and more over time.
In this lower Sonoran habitat, farther west, the giant saguaro cacti represented the most dramatic difference, but I also quickly found unfamiliar acacias and riparian plants as the trail meandered between boulders up the lower canyon. The trail is named for a rock formation high on the western ridge, and eventually I spotted it looming thousands of feet above, as I passed a pool of water and a tall, solitary cottonwood, and the trail began climbing out of the canyon bottom. By that point, I’d passed four or five other hikers heading back from their short morning walks – none of them talkative.
Almost everything I do now evokes painful thoughts – rock formations evoke painful thoughts, writing a dispatch about my hike evokes painful thoughts. This was an incredibly spectacular landscape, and I tried to enjoy it, but ultimately couldn’t. I was just going through the motions to stay in shape.
Climbing out of the canyon bottom, the trail fell under the shadow of the rimrock cliffs above, and stayed in that shadow for most of the way up. I’d taken off my sweater below in the sun and was cold now, but from here on, the trail became incredibly steep and rocky – basically a series of mostly natural rock steps alternating with long, steep slabs of tilted bedrock. I passed a talkative guy and we exchanged multiple confirmations about what a beautiful day it was, what a beautiful place, how lucky we were, etc.
But the steep traverse below those gloomy cliffs was brutal and seemed to go on forever, rounding outlying shoulder after shoulder, with me hoping each would be the last.
Finally I got high enough for oaks, and eventually I reached a sunny ledge overlooking a funnel-like interior basin where side canyons converged with the main one. I stopped for a snack, and another guy caught up and passed me.
Continuing on the trail, I saw my first juniper of the day, then a tall pinyon pine above in a north-facing alcove. These, which you’d normally find above 6,000 feet at this latitude, emphasized how low the trailhead had been. I lost all hope of reaching ponderosas.
The trail curved back into a shady, semi-forested cove where I had a good view of the opposite slope, across which I assumed my trail would continue traversing up the canyon. The hiker that passed me had worn a bright blue shirt but I couldn’t see him ahead and wondered where he’d disappeared to. And soon I was at an unexpected trail junction.
The canyon trail continued left, but a branch trail went right to a saddle, only a hundred yards and a few dozen feet higher. I thought I remembered the name of the branch trail from the sign at my trailhead, hours ago. Could this become a loop? I sure hoped so – I’d been dreading that steep, rocky return on my hurt knee.
At the saddle, the trail surface became smooth, packed dirt, and on the open grassy slopes below I could see it making long, gentle switchbacks. I decided to chance it being a loop back to my trailhead. At worst, if it led to a different trailhead, I might have to walk a few miles on city streets to get back to the truck.
I shortly met a young woman who confirmed this would return to my trailhead. She asked me about the trail in the other canyon, and I warned her – I wonder if she continued that way after reaching the saddle?
I met several others on the way down, including a stocky, crusty woman about my age who warned me that this trail also got steep and rocky toward the bottom. At least it was all in the sun. She was easily the oldest woman I’ve ever met doing a hike this difficult, alone.
Dozens of switchbacks later, and more than 1,500 feet lower, I reached the steep and rocky part. At this point I was favoring my hurt knee and lowering myself slowly over each rock step. I’m calling them steps – mostly it was stepping down from embedded rock to embedded rock – but trailbuilders had put a huge amount of work into this urban wilderness trail, building steps in many places where natural slopes were just too steep for human feet.
I assumed I’d already gone at least four miles to reach the saddle, and my overall distance would be about eight miles. I was exhausted and sore when I found myself only a few hundred feet above the foothill mansions. The trail dropped into the level sand of a broad dry wash, and all the bootprints appeared to lead down the wash.
Standing in the wash, I didn’t see a continuation of the trail on the other side, so I just followed the tracks. And of course, like in the Mojave, I was soon clambering over boulders and forcing my way through dense riparian vegetation. But the tracks continued to lead me on.
Eventually the boulders became car-sized, then house-sized, and I had to make detours through patches of riparian jungle and lower myself over dry waterfalls. Then I saw a mansion, a couple dozen feet above me, then a bridge crossing the wash, with another mansion above the opposite bank. What the hell had I got myself into?
The retaining walls below the houses and the bridge were all vertical and twenty feet high, so I crept under the viaduct. There was a crumbling, mesquite-choked bank on the other side that I could just barely climb, so I forced my way up it and found myself in someone’s driveway, on a street lined with contemporary mansions. I was looking pretty shabby, and recalled the cleaning lady who’d knocked on the wrong door in a suburban neighborhood back in Indiana, and was shot and killed by the homeowner. He was released, because they have a law allowing homeowners to use lethal force when feeling threatened. I knew this was a gated neighborhood and wondered how deep I was inside the gate.
As I trudged west up the street, totally exposed in this expensively xeriscaped neighborhood, I was approached by a car that slowed down to check me out. I smiled and waved, and the driver continued past. A few hundred yards further, I spotted the gate in the distance. It was opening, and an elderly couple walked through. They crossed the street in front of me, pointedly avoiding my eyes, as the gate began to close behind them. It was closed long before I reached it, so I darted furtively into someone else’s side yard and dropped over their retaining wall into the public street. Ah, the urban-wildland interface!
It turns out the trail did resume across that track-filled wash – I was just misled by all the bootprints in the sand. Either way, this hike was at the limit of what I can do now with my knee injury, so I’m still facing a lot of rehab work ahead.
