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We started hiking by 6 am and took the Miller Creek Trail to Happy Valley Saddle, then the Rincon Peak Trail to the top. Round-trip distance was 16.2 miles, with a total elevation gain of over 4000 feet, and we did it in about 7 hours. A description of the route is available here.
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Starting out at the Miller Creek Trailhead. There's an old sign here for the Arizona Trail, but I don't believe that this section is part of the official route anymore. |
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The trail follows Miller Creek for a while. Note that the peak in the background is NOT Rincon Peak. We won't get a glimpse of that until Happy Valley Saddle. |
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After ~1.5 miles, the trail enters Saguaro National Park... |
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...where we saw our first (and only) rattlesnake of the hike. This is a young Arizona Black Rattlesnake. The older ones like this one tend to be darker and have a different pattern. |
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Lots of spheroidally-weathered rocks on this stretch of the hike |
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Neat cactus |
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These clouds gave us a bit of a break from the sun. Note how you can pick out at least 4 different mountain ranges heading off towards the horizon. |
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Just before reaching the saddle, with more trees starting to appear |
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First view of Rincon Peak, from Happy Valley Saddle |
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Lots of trees now... |
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...but still some cactus around... |
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...as well as some flowering yucca plants |
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There were a lot of these red-barked manzanita trees around too |
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On the final stretch towards the peak. The photo doesn't fully capture it, but this may be the steepest trail in any of the ranges around Tucson. |
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Gigantic carin marking the summit |
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My hat, about the sweatiest it's ever been |
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Looking northeast down towards Happy Valley Saddle |
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Looking towards the northwest. The furthest peak is Mt. Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains, and in front of those are Tanque Verde Peak (left) and Mica Mountain (right), which are in the Rincon Mountain range |
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Lots of ladybugs up here... || || \/ |
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Obligatory summit portraits || || \/ |
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Strange to see so many cactus above 8000' elevation! |
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Heading back down... |
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This tree would be scary as hell if you ran into it in full moonlight. Or while stoned. |
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Neat weathering pattern on the rock |
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Not much shade on this stretch, and it's pretty hot by this point... |
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Lots of lichen on many of the rocks |
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Scary close-up lichen pic |
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Looking up at something that's not Rincon Peak |
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Neat boulder with resistant veins (quartz?) that erode more slowly than the rest of the rock |
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Gate at the boundary of National Park and Forest Service land, presumably to keep cows out of the park, and maybe horses too, since this isn't an equestrian trail |
