Blog

Take a Hike-AZT Passage 8

2/21/2021 7:03:39 AM | By Dawn Sutherland | Comment on this

Colossal Cave Park, located at the southern end of the Rincon Mountains, is about a 45 minute drive from our home in Tucson. Historic ranch La Posta Quemada is part of that park and this is where we'll get on the trail.

We'll find our way to the connecting trail in this mesquite-shaded picnic spot.

Always take a photo of the trailhead maps--just in case there's any confusion over the route along the way. Today we'll Hike an "out-and-back" to the La Selvilla trailhead.

Here's the connector trail. In about 1/4 mile we'll be on the AZT.

The trail is a single track through typical desert-at this point anyway. What we found enjoyable about this portion is the rolling terrain, constantly varying scenery, and-

-the beautiful vegetation, especially with the sunlight pouring through the foliage.

The sun is already warm at mid-morning. Let's peel off some of our layers in the shade up ahead.

If you look carefully, you can see the old ranch in the distance. The trail winds in and out of a forest of saguaros.

Just stay on the red route.

If there's any doubt, the trail is well-marked. We'll start to drop down into a mesquite bosque.

It's a shady concentration of mesquites. The morning has become pretty warm and the mottled shade is welcome.

Every now and then one just needs to stop and marvel.

The big scenes are cool, but sometimes you just have to marvel at the patterns and small details out on a trail. Here, the leaves of a mesquite provide that welcome shade.