Hike, Eat… Repeat!
Life in the desert has come at us fast and furious! Living in Tucson has given us the opportunity to stay local and maximize our explorations. There are so many unique elements to this area. The Catalina Mountains feature endless hiking and recreation possibilities. The beautiful summer like weather has allowed for us to maximize our time outside. No to mention the food! We have been diving into the local lifestyle of Tucson over the past couple weeks. We are fortunate and lucky to have the opportunity to call this “Home” this winter!
Mile: 79,529
Quote of the Blog: “Tacos are like what the voices of a hundred angels singing Bob Dylan while sitting on rainbows and playing banjos would taste like if that sound were edible." - Isabel Quintero
Song of the Blog: “Horse With No Name” - America
Just north of Tucson are the Catalina Foothills, which lead into the greater Santa Catalina Mountain Range. This mountain range does not feel like it should be here. This is where Mount Lemmon proudly sits above 9,000’ of vertical elevation. We have taken multiple adventures up into these mountains, and have only looked at the tip of the iceberg, let alone touched it. We have spent a good amount of time here over the past couple weeks. It has become a sort of weekend ritual to hike up there. We called up our hiking friend, Katie, and headed up to the Sabino State Parka area to explore. Our trail started at a parking area outside of the state park that we have been to before for another hike. It’s a great spot, because it saves us state park fees, which are quite pricy here in AZ, and it gave us a little more length to the hike. We set out to do Blackett’s Ridge. With beautiful weather, we had a great day in the sunshine. The Saguaros were massive, and the trail was littered with tons of Mica crystals. The trail took us up above the Tucson Valley, with amazing views of the mountains ahead of us, and the valley to the left, right and behind us. The lush green views will always surprise us. It turns out, this is the wettest desert in the world, which makes sense! At the top of the ridge, we took in the views. This area had some massive cliff faces, as the ridge began to have significant exposure on both sides. Amity safely navigated to a good resting spot, while I found a good cliff to dangle my feet off. Hiking with Katie is a great change in our typical day of hiking. We have so much to talk about and enjoy the conversations along the hike! The hike was beautiful and went quick.
That night, we wanted to test out a new brewery. My research was not good, and the brewery ended up being just a small pub with $12 beers from other local breweries. We enjoyed our overpriced beers, and walked across the street to a restaurant and pub called Sonoran House. This was many times nicer and many times cheaper than the place across the street. We really enjoyed their ricotta cheese dip! After drinks, we went to head home. The night’s sky was blazed orange with a beautiful sunset. A quick reminder that sunsets in southern Arizona are one of the most special elements of living here. We wrapped up the weekend with a relaxing day exploring around downtown Tucson. Amity has been making fun of the fact that “downtown” does not look like any other cities, and that there are several other areas of town that could also be viewed as a downtown. Nonetheless, we walked around the city and looked at the different murals and artwork. For a city of half a million people, downtown is very clean, feels pretty safe, but there are not many people down here. Walking around at 1pm on a Monday, one would think it would be much busier, but it’s not. Maybe Amity was right, and this wasn’t downtown?!? Only time will tell.
That week, the weather in the valley decided to remind us it was actually winter. The temps dropped and the rain came in with a couple days of significant weather. I watched the weather in the hopes that some snow would fall in the mountains. Luck was on our side! Over a two day period, over 16 inches of snow fell at the top of Mount Lemmon. The moment the road was open to the public, I headed up to play in the snow. The drive up to Mount Lemmon is crazy and beautiful on an average day. It was truly spectacular when it was covered in snow! In the matter of 30 minutes I had left the desert, cacti and dry conditions and found myself post holing as I tried to walk out into the woods and play in the snow. I stopped by Mount Lemmon Ski Valley to get a read on if they would open but unfortunately, they need 24 inches of snow to open. Ski Valley is a tiny lift service ski hill at the top of Mount Lemmon. It is the furthest south lift access ski hill in the northern hemisphere of the planet! I did a little day dreaming of skiing there, before continuing on my snow day exploration. As I was driving into the Summerhaven area of Mount Lemmon, I passed a off-looking animal. It resembled a Lemer, but it couldn’t be one as it was snowy and they don’t live in the United States. Turns out it was a Coatimundi or a Coati. These are a relative to the Racoon, and live in Central American and parts of Southwestern US; including Mount Lemmon. I was just lucky enough to see one. I spent another hour or so taking it all in, before heading down into the valley and back into “summer”. I do love snow and miss winter, but I love Amity more, so this year I let her choose summer weather in lue of winter and the cold. Soon enough I will be up in Montana on my skis. You never know, maybe one of these weeks a big snow storm will happen and I will get to ski up at Ski Valley. Later that week we took a night to hunt down one of our favorite Southwestern treats; Margarita Flights! We ended up at a place called Reforma. They have the largest selection of Tequila in the city, and their margarita options are endless. We both got different flights. From the Mezcal Margarita to the Blood Orange, they were all delicious! We will be back here for more soon.
As the week progressed, we made some more plans to hike with Katie again. This next adventure was up to Finger Rock for a beautiful hike in the Santa Catalina Mountains. The hike was a gradual climb into a valley up in the foothills. We worked up to a ridge line and made a loop back to the parking area. We did around 8 miles of hiking and around a thousand vertical feet of elevation gain. At one point, we found ourselves making our way up the trail and came to an area that looked like a scramble up a small wash on the hillside. A couple groups were ahead of us, so we continued behind them and worked our way up the scramble. As I pushed up, I started to pass people. At one point a group looked at me and said, “See there are other people hiking this way. This must be the right way.” That was my first sign that something was not right. The next moment was when I had reached the top of the wash and there was no trail going anywhere. There was another group at the top with me coming to the same realization; that we had gone the wrong way. The trial was about 300 feet below us. I thought I might be able to cut down to the trail at an angle and not have to go back down the wash I had bear crawled up, but after one step I was covered in sticky burrs. I immediately stopped and called to the girls to turn around and head down. This was a sign to everyone on the wash that we were all going the wrong way. This was a perfect example of Conformity. We saw other doing something and just thought they were right, when they were far from right. By the time I got back to the bottom of the wash, it was obvious that the trail continued straight from the point we turned right to go up the wash. Once we got back to the trail we were happy to have found the right direction, but had expunged much more effort than we should have at this point. We changed the name of the trail from Finger Trail to Middle Finger Trail! We had a good laugh and continued on our hike. After this mistake, it was smooth sailing and a beautiful hike. We came across some really cool vantage points where rocks jetted out over the valley and looked like you were standing on the edge of a high-rise building. We apricated that Kaite did not judge us for our wrong turn, but instead laughed with us about it for the rest of the hike. It’s good to have fantastic trail friends who will go through some crap with ya, and come out laughing on the other side. She fully knows how to Live Rad!
The next adventure on our docket was an iconic dinner. Tucson is where the Chimichanga was invented. The story goes that a restaurant owner was in the process of making a burrito for an order when she accidently dropped it into the deep fryer. In a state of anger she almost said the Spanish word for F*ck, and in a conscious state to not cuss in front of staff she yelled out Chimichanga (which is very close to the Spanish cuss word). There in case they accidently invented the Chimichanga! The restaurant is called El Charro. The downtown Tucson location is the original, and where the magic happened. I have never been to a Mexican restaurant that needed a reservation, but here we are! The restaurant is really cool. They have grown over the years, and have several spaces. We started our evening at their enclosed patio bar for a beer while we waited for our table. We watched and listened to a mariachi band make their way around to just about every table. The mood and vibe at the restaurant was 10 out of 10. We eventually got to our table and ordered food. We both had to do different kinds of chimichangas. Long story short; AMAZING! Past chimi’s have had a tortilla that is super crispy and firm, but these had a tortilla that was crispy; not too crispy & just as you would expect from the place that invented them. If you are in Tucson, it is a must! We will be coming back here several times! We now know that our exit date has changed from March 1st to May 10th. This means a lot more hiking, chimichangas, local breweries and Living Rad in the desert!