Hike #17 - Bear Canyon to Seven Falls - Sabino Canyon Tucson AZ

Hike #17

Date: February 18, 2014 

Location: Tucson AZ

Hikers: Julio & Linda 

Directions: Take the Ina Road Exit 248, Merge on I10 Frontage Road. Turn left on W Ina Road continue on E skyline Drive, continue on E Sunrise Drive, Turn left onto N Sabino Canyon Road. Take 1st Right onto N Pantano Road. Visitor Center parking. 

Santa Catalina Mountains/Sabino Canyon Recreation Area 

http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/coronado/specialplaces/recarea/?recid=25612&actid=50

Bear Canyon FS #29 to Seven Falls is our hike for the day.  This is a 7.8 mile hike in the Santa Catalina mountains in Tucson.  Mt Lemmon is the highest point of the Catalina's.  This Mountain gets snow each year and you can ski.  Not enough snow there now and hard to think about that when it is 85 degrees in mid February.

I checked out this trail and read trip reports.  There are two Trams that you can take if you do not want to hike or to use to get up to a hiking trail.  We chose not to take the Tram which extended our hike a bit.  I can tell you the place was packed.  Tourists everywhere.  Lots of older people and back eat February vacationers.  The trails were not busy though.

If you do take a Tram make sure you take the correct one to hike the trail you want.  The scenic tour one is $8. It is narrated and takes you up Sabino Canyon. You can hop on and off.  The other Tram takes you to the trail head of Bear Canyon/7Falls and it is $3.  It is not narrated.  Check the times too because we never saw the tram while hiking.  Although on the way back we wish we did.

 The first part of the hike is on a dirt road.  This is where you will see most of the people.  Once you hit the trailhead we never saw anyone til miles into the hike.  Keep in mind we went on a Tuesday though. The trail was very easy a slight gradual up.  There were tons of saguaros. Very large ones.
Our pace in the beginning was slow. Julio had camera issues so we stopped several times.  He is killing my stats.  Joking!

I found the trick to keep Julio going on these hikes.  I take the camera from him and let him walk ahead of me.  That keeps him going and then I take his picture and he likes that.  (don't tell him).

He took 300+ pictures.  I obviously will not be putting them all on this blog.

The temperature was hot.  It was in the 80's when we started and the sun was pounding on us.  It was hot but not too bad.  I forgot my hat in the car.

There is a slight elevation gain but it is not really noticeable as you hike up the path.  The sun was on us the entire time.  It was 85 degrees while we hiked and on the way up there was no breeze. On the way back there was a breeze so that was nice.  

It is a beautiful area very different from our Sedona hikes.  I prefer the terrain of Sedona but this is about discovering new areas.  It still amazes me that we are hiking in February and it is this beautiful and warm.  We are fortnate to live is such a great place. 2 hour drive from the house is pretty sweet! 

The stream along the hiking path was mostly dry beds.  We would get to little pockets of water as we walked. 
Julio and I  hop walked across rocks to other side of the stream over 7 times.   

On this crossing we met a couple from Boston.  They noticed my Red Sox shirt.  We chatted about the great weather and how much they missed the winter in New England.  HA HA

There were many blooming cactus and wild flowers all around.  

 We were almost there.  We hiked a little over 4 miles.  It was an easy hike but longer than we expected.  Julio was getting a little antsy knowing that we had 4 miles back after this.  We finally made it to Seven Falls and hiked a little bit past it.  It was 4.5 miles

Heading back we were excited to go back and started talking about lunch.  Julio had Pasta in mind and that kept him going for a while.  We talked about taking the tram too when we got 2 miles down. But we never saw it.  

 I am so glad we did this hike!

We perked up when we knew there was only one more mile left.  On the way down we took the road vs the trail.  It was 1.9 miles back from the trailhead.  

We had a great day.  This was hike #17 - Check it off!! 

In the end our hike was 8.5 miles.  It took us a little over 3 hours.  We took a couple stops and brought out lunch and ate on the trail.  No Bears were spotted. 

It was a fun adventure!