Spring in southern Arizona has been lovely - getting warmer but not hot (until recently) and plenty of buds and flowers. And so many more things to still see and places to explore.
We did the little climb up Keystone Peak on a beautiful day:
If there's a flood up here, we're all in trouble:
Love it!
A view of Baboquivari Peak on the horizon (I like to call it Bilbo):
Standing in line for El Charro, after learning that it's one of the more popular places in Tucson. We did enjoy the food. Not sure it's worth the effort and the crowds though. And that concludes my restaurant review of the month.
Our friend Taylor came down from Flagstaff for a conference, yay! So great to see her and do some hiking. We tossed out the idea of doing a short adventure race (the orienteering club in Phoenix puts on some good ones) and she was game to try. The packrafting on the lake was our favorite leg:
John led the way, we giggled a lot, found at least one checkpoint each on the paddle, bike, and trek for an official finish, and called it a success. Thank you for the fun morning, Taylor!
I've been interested in running the Crown King Scramble 50K since I first heard about it. "Spines to Pines", it's a climb from the desert up to the ponderosas. Seems like a good time to try it:
John dropped me off and drove way around to pick me up. Some things he saw along the way, including a gaggle of hot air vehicles (I also saw them from much further away):
A couple electric Amazon vans parked at the Rivian service center in Phoenix - it's happening!
Maybe they're 40% clothed on the front?
The race went great, lots of rolling hills, a few rocks, creek crossings, and of course a big climb toward the end. Yay for the high desert! John got to drive our Rivian on a long dirt road up to Crown King and back down, so he had a bit of fun too.
We're both working on our climbing legs, so it seemed like we were ready to try Mica Mountain again. This time we drove Tug-E up to Redington Pass to get us a tad closer before starting off on foot. The view of Mica on the way up - we really like the giant rocks around here:
Still a small amount of snow at the top, but no post-holing this time:
Yay, we made it!
The views from the peaks around Tucson are always wonderful:
Just for fun, we did a 5 mile/10 mile trail race at Catalina State Park. Good for some speed work that I normally might not do. The photographer got a couple excellent shots of us:
At the final water crossing, woo hoo John!
John finished the 5 miles and returned for a nice picture of me (and the photographer) at the end of my 2nd loop, with the Catalina range in the background:
And finally, a little peek at the aforementioned flowers:
Tucson is a great place to spend a winter in the outdoors, no doubt.
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