January 18-19, Gardner Canyon TH to Gabe Zimmerman TH. (40+ miles and 4,000+ feet of climbing

Here's to starting the year off with a great Arizona Trail hike.  I hope this is the first of many good AZ trail hikes for this year.  I was a little scared when I scheduled this hike for January, not knowing what the weather would be like.  Then last week we had one of the coldest spells I can recall in the desert, with lows in the teens and twenties and daytime highs barely reaching the 40's.  If that weather pattern had continued I  was seriously considering wimping out on this hike.  Luckily the weather turned warmer and couldn't have been better for hiking.

When I started to plan my schedule for hikes this spring, these three passages (5, 6 and 7) seemed like a good place to start.  Each about 13 miles long but an ending point that was about 1500 feet in elevation lower than I began.  A three day hike seemed to cut the days too short, so in my mind a hike consisting of two 20 mile days seemed logical.  Unfortunately my mind doesn't often talk with my body and as I write this my body is pretty ticked off at my mind!!!

Only on the Arizona Trail can you end a hike over 1500 feet lower in elevation and still climb 4,000 feet in elevation.  They weren't long climbs, or particularly difficult, but they were one after another, up and down, in and out of washes, ravines and small canyons.

I haven't spent a great deal of time in the southern portion of our state so each outing down that way is a new experience.  The altitude is generally higher, but the temperatures seem to be more moderate.

I did my first "tourist" stop on this hike as the trail goes directly through Kentucky Camp, an old mining camp being restored/preserved by the Forest Service.  You can learn more about Kentucky Camp by clicking here.

This is one of several "gates" I encountered with no fence attached.
Should I have walked through the gate?  

This is my second hike in and around the Tucson area and I'm truly amazed at how much use the Arizona Trail gets.  I think I've seen more trail users and a greater variety of users in the Tucson area than I've seen in all the other sections combined that I've hiked so far.

Hard to believe this is Arizona??