Catalina State Park

Today we visited Catalina State Park which is located at the base of the Catalina Mountains near the city of Oro Valley north of Tucson. We had a couple of trails in mind but when we got started we found that a wash we had to cross was running with a fair amount of water, most people take off their boots and walk across but we hadn’t prepared by bringing a towel to dry our feet off or plastic bags to wear over our boots so we changed our plans and improvised by walking a combination of portions of different trails that didn’t require us to cross the wash.

First we walked the canyon loop up the valley until it crossed the wash where we walked up to an equestrian trail and took that further up the valley, it was a nice walk with the wash to our right and the mountains beyond the wash, to our left was a ridge which was covered with Saguaro cactus.  When the horse trail crossed the wash we turned around and traced our steps back to the trail head.

We walked up the wash looking for a place to rock hop across but with KoKo along we couldn’t find a good spot.

 

Saguaro ridge.

The Catalina Mountains.

 

At the trail head we walked the one mile nature trail which ascended the ridge and looped through the desert. There were a number of information signs with facts about this habitat and the animals within it. After this nice hike we drove to a picnic area and ate our lunch before returning to the mothership.

 

KoKo does her Coyote impression.

 

The nature trail loop.

 

 

Looking back at the Catalina Mountains.

 

 

A nice man took this for us.

 

When we got back Sandy did some additional work at the very nice fitness center here at Beaudry. After Sandy finished her workout we relaxed in the hot tub before we had supper.