Last Thursday Kelsey and I decided to hit the trail up at Sabino Canyon. After sleeping through a few alarms and waffling back and forth, "do we go now or wait 'til tomorrow for an earlier start"... 3:00 p.m. finds us hustling to the canyon so we can make Seven Falls and back by sundown, a not so short 8 miles round trip. Since we hadn't eaten yet we decided that a couple of 99 cent cheeseburgers from McDonalds was the most budget appropriate meal, our bag of change was almost out. One small fry and one Large Sprite later and we get to the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area parking lot where we somehow manage to clean five bucks out of the Zip-Loc bag of nickles and dimes to fill the "Cash Only" Day Pass envelope. 1525 hours and we've got a little over three hours to sundown where the potential for losing the trail goes up considerably so I felt a little more comfortable when I grabbed the headlamp out of the seatback pocket of the driver's seat. Feeling ready to go, yet anxious to get going we take off past the Visitor's Center and Shuttle Bus pick up, leaving behind our last opportunity to look at any sort of map or, Genius Idea, grab one from inside. Our feet were getting hot on the black asphalt that was going to lead us to the trailhead to Seven Falls when there was our first fork in the road, continue straight to Sabino Canyon, Sabino Dam, and Sabino Lake or make a right to follow that blacktop to Bear Canyon? Way too far to go back to grab a map and too confident with my memory to ask somebody for directions, I had to think fast. The maps I'd seen online and the directions I'd remembered reading said that we were to follow the asphalt until it ended where there would be a trailhead. Bear Canyon sounded familiar but I had to imagine Seven Falls being near things like the lake and dam. Straight it is. the few people on the trail with us were heading the same direction so we were confident. Little girls and grandmas came out of the canyon in front of us followed by a couple of shuttles not unlike those that drive you around the zoo. I knew that the trailhead would be at the end of the shuttle stops so I wasn't worried, besides, Kelsey didn't even realize we'd already gone two miles. Boots were feelin great and civilization had finally disappeared behind us. We found a nice spot along the creek with a great big flat boulder and decided to snap a few photos before continuing on along the asphalt. Shuttle stops are still coming so I know we're going the right direction, but Kelsey isn't convinced. The sun is goin down and the shadows are starting to run up the walls of the canyon, so I ask a group of elderly people on the return route how much farther the asphalt went. "All the way to the top" was not necessarily something I wanted to hear, but I'm glad I asked before we went much farther. The elderly people were nice enough to give us their map which told me one thing, I was totally wrong. We had missed our turn off to Bear Canyon where Seven Falls is actually located, at the end of THAT shuttle route, about two and a half miles back. Map in hand, we turn around and hurry past the old people that know exactly what has happened. With our day wasted on going the wrong direction we naturally made the most of it and USED OUR MAP to work our way down to the Sabino Dam and back to the bottom on the Phoneline Trail. We made our way up the rocky switchbacks but stopped to make sure we didn't let our hot spots turn into blisters. After failing to make it all the way to the Phoneline trail we decided to turn back towards the creek so we could follow it down to the dam. Gorgeous creekside trails brought us to the dam where we took some time to cool off and let our feet soak in the cold water and refill our waterbags. The sunset was coming even quicker now so we took some more pictures and packed our stuff up. After a minute or two of backtracking we made our way to the road and headed back to the parking lot. The moon was brighter than usual this evening and made for a beautiful sunset photo.
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| Northeast with the moon up early. |
Last Thursday Kelsey and I decided to hit the trail up at Sabino Canyon. After sleeping through a few alarms and waffling back and forth, "do we go now or wait 'til tomorrow for an earlier start"... 3:00 p.m. finds us hustling to the canyon so we can make Seven Falls and back by sundown, a not so short 8 miles round trip. Since we hadn't eaten yet we decided that a couple of 99 cent cheeseburgers from McDonalds was the most budget appropriate meal, our bag of change was almost out. One small fry and one Large Sprite later and we get to the Sabino Canyon Recreation Area parking lot where we somehow manage to clean five bucks out of the Zip-Loc bag of nickles and dimes to fill the "Cash Only" Day Pass envelope. 1525 hours and we've got a little over three hours to sundown where the potential for losing the trail goes up considerably so I felt a little more comfortable when I grabbed the headlamp out of the seatback pocket of the driver's seat. Feeling ready to go, yet anxious to get going we take off past the Visitor's Center and Shuttle Bus pick up, leaving behind our last opportunity to look at any sort of map or, Genius Idea, grab one from inside. Our feet were getting hot on the black asphalt that was going to lead us to the trailhead to Seven Falls when there was our first fork in the road, continue straight to Sabino Canyon, Sabino Dam, and Sabino Lake or make a right to follow that blacktop to Bear Canyon? Way too far to go back to grab a map and too confident with my memory to ask somebody for directions, I had to think fast. The maps I'd seen online and the directions I'd remembered reading said that we were to follow the asphalt until it ended where there would be a trailhead. Bear Canyon sounded familiar but I had to imagine Seven Falls being near things like the lake and dam. Straight it is. the few people on the trail with us were heading the same direction so we were confident. Little girls and grandmas came out of the canyon in front of us followed by a couple of shuttles not unlike those that drive you around the zoo. I knew that the trailhead would be at the end of the shuttle stops so I wasn't worried, besides, Kelsey didn't even realize we'd already gone two miles. Boots were feelin great and civilization had finally disappeared behind us. We found a nice spot along the creek with a great big flat boulder and decided to snap a few photos before continuing on along the asphalt. Shuttle stops are still coming so I know we're going the right direction, but Kelsey isn't convinced. The sun is goin down and the shadows are starting to run up the walls of the canyon, so I ask a group of elderly people on the return route how much farther the asphalt went. "All the way to the top" was not necessarily something I wanted to hear, but I'm glad I asked before we went much farther. The elderly people were nice enough to give us their map which told me one thing, I was totally wrong. We had missed our turn off to Bear Canyon where Seven Falls is actually located, at the end of THAT shuttle route, about two and a half miles back. Map in hand, we turn around and hurry past the old people that know exactly what has happened. With our day wasted on going the wrong direction we naturally made the most of it and USED OUR MAP to work our way down to the Sabino Dam and back to the bottom on the Phoneline Trail. We made our way up the rocky switchbacks but stopped to make sure we didn't let our hot spots turn into blisters. After failing to make it all the way to the Phoneline trail we decided to turn back towards the creek so we could follow it down to the dam. Gorgeous creekside trails brought us to the dam where we took some time to cool off and let our feet soak in the cold water and refill our waterbags. The sunset was coming even quicker now so we took some more pictures and packed our stuff up. After a minute or two of backtracking we made our way to the road and headed back to the parking lot. The moon was brighter than usual this evening and made for a beautiful sunset photo.