February 18, 2020 - PIcketpost Loop- Prehike

Jerry and John R. prehiked Picketpost Loop for Friday's Hike - Mileage 8.4 miles

January 21, 2020 - Fat Man's Pass Prehike from the North

Milage - 8.1

January 28, 2020 - Pre hike Fat Man's Pass from the South

Mileage 7.2 miles

February 11, 2020 Prehike to Miner's Needle - Bluff Springs Loop

Milage 9.9 Miles. 

February 4, 2020 - Scouting Hutch's Pool

Linda and Kevin Scouted Hutch's pool last week. They talked to the park management and were told that in order to make sure everyone was able to secure a ticket, they should go online to https://www.sabinocanyoncrawler.com/  The Tram is now called a Crawler and can be reserved on hourly time slots. The tram runs every 1/2 hour, but for some reason, people can only book in the hourly slots. The cost is now $12.00. It still says it is $10.00 on the main National Parks Site, https://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/coronado/recarea/?recid=80532 but it has not been updated. Linda, John R and I sent out a bulletin to the hikers that this has changed. See below:

Important information for 

Hutch’s Pool Hike

Palm Creek Hiking Club

Friday, February 7, 2020

As noted in the first handout for this hike there is a Tram (now called Crawler) on Hutch’s Pool Hike. To assure places on the Crawler you need to buy your ticket online. There are only 56 spaces available so it is important to purchase the $12.00 ticket as soon as possible. Each hiker has this responsibility. The website is www.sabinocanyoncrawler.com. When purchasing the ticket you will need to select the 10:00 AM Sabino Canyon Tour. 

To make sure we don’t miss the Crawler we need to:

1. Leave Palm Creek parking lot at 8:00 sharp. 
2. Make sure a member in your car has an America the Beautiful Senior’s pass for National Parks. Go to the left-hand side at the gate if you have a pass. If you do not have a pass you pay $5.00 per car and you may have to wait longer. 
3. We all need to be at the Crawler departure site location at least 15 minutes before departure (9:45).
4. Make sure you waste no time as you gather equipment and use the washrooms.  

The Crawler goes to “stops” along the way where people can get off when they choose. We will be riding to the end, which is stop 9. The Crawler’s last pick up at #9 is 4:30. We need to be back in time. We will gauge our hike accordingly. 

Please don’t be deterred by these arrangements. We want this beautiful hike to be successful.  

We will need to incorporate this information into the mailout for the Bear Canyon Hike and continue to have this information available in subsequent hikes to Sabino Canyon.

January 23, 2020 Prehike to Fat Man's Pass

Jerry and John Prehiked the Summit Road Trail Area for the short hike and decided they would start at Dobbins Lookout. 

Jerry at Fat Man's Pass 

Holbert Trail Marker

The trails taken on this hike were Dobbins Trail to Holbert to National Trail to Hidden Valley. Mormon and Hidden Valley Junction for lunch, then back on National and Holbert to Dobbins Lookout. About 7.8 miles

January 15, 2020 - Prehike - 50 Year Trail and Gem Trail at E. Equestrian Trailhead, Catalina

John and Nancy pre-hiked 50 Year Trail on a beautiful winter day with no wind and slight cloud cover.

The trail is located in Catalina State Park, at the end of East FeatGolder Ranch Drive at the end of

the pavement. The E. Equestrian Parking area is large and sandy with no washroom facilities.

It is advised to stop at the gas station at the corner of Oracle Road and East Golder Ranch Road.

The hike started at 9:30 at a Cattle Guard which indicated there were cattle in the area. We only

saw a bull and a steer on the whole hike. There are many paths scattered throughout the desert

so it is great to have an All-trails track to follow. The terrain was flat with desert vegetation

including large Teddy Bear, chain link and staghorn cholla and Mesquite trees for the first

hour and 15 minutes of the hike. We decided to go onto Gem Trail as it seemed to lead us to the

boulders and seen on the horizon. The trail wound around the rocks up to where we could see

views of the Golder Ranch area below as well as the mountains in Catalina Park. We continued on

Gem and had lunch at the turnaround point at 11:30. We enjoyed the walk through the boulders

and desert and arrived back at the trailhead at 1:30.

The extra loop on Gem Trail added 1 mile. This may be the difference between the medium hike

and the long hike.

We decided the medium hike would do one loop of the Gem trail and come back at a trail that

intersects Gem trail - 7 miles total. The long hike would continue and do a longer loop on

Gem Trail - 8 miles total.

Feature Picture - Enhance by Nancy