Explore Tucson, Arizona’s natural beauty, both above ground and below.
My annual wintertime retreats to warmer climes always brings me to Southern Arizona for a long weekend. The Grand Canyon is awfully chilly at 7,000 feet (2,000 m) in elevation. January brought me to Death Valley and now, it’s time for the Tucson, Arizona area. My first stop was the Titan Missile Museum. Now it was time for some nature!
Normally, I make this excursion alone. However, a friend came along this time, so I did something I wouldn’t normally do. I went caving!
Colossal Cave Mountain Park is located in Vail, about 22 mi southeast of Tucson. One of the three caves are open for explorations. There are three tour options. We selected the ladder tour, the intermediate option. There was climbing, crawling, and a bit of shuffling and squeezing. Truly an experience.
The entrance to the Colossal Cave. The trails in the cave were built during the Depression by the CCC.
The cave was once used as a fallout shelter. There are a bunch of old water barrels down here. They have been down here for so long that they are now considered historic artifacts. However, I wouldn’t drink the water anymore.
Watch your step!
This was the original entrance to the cave system used by the CCC. The Native Americans that explored the caves used a very tiny entrance. Near the bottom of the shaft, you may just make out some of the wooden supports under the shadow of my phone. (I didn’t want to drag my camera down in the cave.) It took a lot of pointed headlamps to make this photo possible.
The rock formations in this cave are crazy!
The cave is now dry, no longer having a water source. No new formations are being made.
Cool little side cavern.
The CCC built tunnel that connects larger chambers in the cave. Before they dug this tunnel, it was probably a very tight squeeze.
Just awesome!
CCC gear left over from making the cave more tourist friendly.
It’s pretty cool what they did with this room.
An elephant!
Now that we spent the morning underground, we decided to roast in the hot desert sun in the afternoon, not usually the best option, but cave tour decided our schedule for the day. Our next stop was one of my favorite nation parks, Saguaro National Park. This was my third visit to the park famous for its cactus. (Check out my first and second visit!)
After climbing around in a cave, our knees needed a little bit of a break, so we chose an easy trail loop, Mica View to Cactus Forest on the East Side of the park. Prepare for some photos of saguaros!
While I prefer the West Side of Saguaro National Park more, the East Side is still really pretty.
It looks like these two saguaros are duking it out.
The Sonoran Desert is like none other. Full of vegetation and life. Lots of green, especially in the winter. The Sonoran is unique for its two rainy seasons, winter and the monsoons in the summer.
Baby saguaros need shade. That’s why you will often find them next to nurse trees. Eventually, the nurse tree may die, whether by competition for precious water, or by the saguaro just simply outliving it.
This saguaro and its nurse tree have been together for a very, very long time.
Cholla look fluffy but they aren’t. They are very, very not fluffy.
The cactus forest on this side of the park is thinner than the West Side because they used to let cattle graze here. Sigh.
The woody spine of a long-gone saguaro.
This is one trail you don’t want to wander off of. Ouch!
We ended up having to walk through a wash to get back to the car. So many trails in the Southwest follow washes, I swear.
We weren’t quite done with the day. We still had a couple more hours of daylight left, so we headed up Mt. Lemmon, a Tucson landmark.
Up we go!
Beautiful mountain area.
A bit hazy out, but still great views. It was getting colder and windier the higher we ascended.
Mt. Lemmon had similar rock formations and hoodoos as Chiricahua National Monument to the east of Tucson.
Most of the good views from Mt. Lemmon are from about this elevation this time of day.
Natural arch!
Sunset views, sort of.
The Tucson area is my favorite area of Arizona, especially in the winter months. There are a ton of recreation opportunities to be had, along with museums and gardens.
Check out my next update where I visit Organ Pipe National Monument!
or
Check out more amazing places in Arizona!
