When you’re trying to recount the newest most amazing trip you’ve taken in your life, it can be hard to start at the beginning. Details of things loved and mishaps overcome come rushing in all at once. So instead, I’m starting in the middle of Italy, with the day Logan and I saddled up in…
Category: Trails
Wirepass to Lee’s Ferry: A Trip that Almost Happened
Our trip started on a Tuesday when we left Tucson headed for the Paria/Vermillion Cliff’s Wilderness area. After a long drive north to the southern edge of Utah we arrived at the White House trail head and campground around 10pm. We dropped an impromptu camp in front of our cars and got to sleep. Our…
Bike Tour from Sonoita to Bisbee
As a “dry run” for our cycle tour through Italian wine country, we decided to take a tour through Arizona wine country, and on our two day trip we found more beauty and challenge than we had bargained for. We started in Sonoita, with Logan’s parents graciously playing the role of our shuttle drivers. They…
Italia!
It all started when a customer walked in the store for something simple–I think it was sport beans or vitalyte for a cycling event–and told me about L’Eroica. His eyes got that faraway dreamy stare as he told me of this long ride through Tuscany on historic white gravel roads called the “strade bianchi.” Three…
Mt Humphrey’s Sunrise Summit
We left Tucson around 3pm headed for Flagstaff. We had two options for our hike. We could either find a campsite, get a good night’s sleep and start early in the morning OR we were considering having dinner, getting a few hours of sleep and starting around midnight, putting us at the summit around sunrise….
Trials and Tribulations of (Not) Heli-Skiing
A couple weeks ago I was fortunate enough to be invited on a 2 day heli-ski trip in the North Cascades of Eastern Washington. Me?! Heli-ski?! You bet! Now, I have no idea why they thought someone who spent the last 14 years in Tucson would be a good candidate for heli-skiing (I can rip…
A Long(ish) Walk in Southern Arizona
Great long distance backpacking in southern Arizona? Have to admit I used to think not, but that was simply due to my weak imagination. It was the Arizona Trail that first opened my mind to the enormous possibilities Arizona holds for stitching together long distance backpacking trips. Our route -; about 95 miles of walking…
Snowshoe Shenanigans
After getting a taste of winter about a month ago, I’ve been eagerly anticipating more snowfall on Mt. Lemmon. Unfortunately, the weather through the rest of November was fairly warm and no snow fell up on the mountain. All that changed in the second week of December when a storm system rolled in and dumped…
First Snow of the Season
Snow days are few and far between in Southern Arizona – and when they do come, you usually need to drive up a mountain to enjoy them. Mt. Lemmon is the highest mountain in the Santa Catalina range just north of Tucson and resides at a modest 9,157 feet. While it isn’t the tallest point…
Salome Canyon
A few weeks ago, a group of us took a little canyoneering journey up to Salome Canyon. For those of you who may not know, canyoneering is an adventure activity that essentially entails making your way down the bottom of a canyon – by any means necessary. Sometimes that means hiking, sometimes it’s sliding and…