Madera Canyon and Illness Comes to Visit

Friday was the last good weather day.  In all of the years that we've been wintering in Tucson, we have never been to Madera Canyon, so we decided to go there.  First we went to the top parking lot, it's at about 5900 feet, and the trail ascends to 7900 feet.  After about 100 yards of that, we decided we would get back in the truck and go to a lower altitude.  Between the wind and the lapse rate, it was really cold.  We went to parking lot C, which is the lowest lot.  With the benefit of hindsight, we should have gone to B.  Leaving C, the trail goes straight up, and there are a lot of rocks on much of it.  I don't like these rocks because they roll under your feet.  If you go, and get a map, all of these parking lot designators will become clear.

It's a pretty area.  There are a lot of trees.

There are mountains.

Eventually, there were overlooks.  See the blue off to the left?  That's what in all of those mine tailings.

We took the Bog Spring trail.  This would be the spring.

There is a nice looking stand of sycamore trees at the spring.  It's unfortunate that the light wasn't better for photographing.

I took this driving back down the big hill.  You can better see the wall of tailings with the water inside.

Elephant Head.

More grassland.

This is an old helipad.  It was used for the Titan Missiles.

More views of the mountains.

It's pretty out there.  At present it's mostly brown grass land and dormant trees, but it has its own serene beauty.

Coming back from Madera, I could feel myself getting sick.  By the time I got home I had the burning throat, the coughing up of material from the lungs and the burning eyes.  The timing on sick was good since the weather the last two days has just been awful; it's windy, cold and wet.  The rain just started up again.

It's really tragic how bad the weather was, because this was the weekend for 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.  It's a mountain bike race up near the Biosphere.  It's north, and higher in elevation than Tucson, they got way more rain than we did.  It's surprising to me that they have the race this early in the season.  Here is a picture of Lance Armstrong who did the event with George Hincapie.

He's looking slightly hypothermic.