It was finally time for some hiking on our Tucson trip. Although we had done some walking through the trails behind the RV park, we hadn’t yet gotten a good hike in. This was partly because we now had a dog that was just NO fun to walk on a leash. At least not yet.
The trail I found on All Trails and really wanted to take didn’t allow dogs anyway so it worked out.
This is part of Yetman Trail, a beautiful trail in Tucson Mountain Park. Even living in Phoenix, I’ve never seen so many saguaro cactus (or is it cacti… no wait, it’s cactuses…) in one place! With that many saguaro, you begin to see personalities in each of them.
The Happy Couple
Is this the 2020 version of free hugs?
Sometimes even the cacti give up on 2020.
The big reason I wanted to take this trail was for the reward at the end. Just over one mile in and you come across the Bowen Stone House. This 5 room stone structure was built far from the city limits of Tucson in the 1930s by Sherry and Ruby Bowen. At the time, Sherry was the city editor for the Arizona Daily Star newspaper.
Can you imagine living this far out in a desert? I can’t even fathom how long a trip into town would have taken or how they got there. Cars certainly existed but I saw no signs of even so much as a dirt road. And how did they get all that concrete out there??
I had packed my entire camera all the way in hoping to get some great photos only to realize I left the “film” (aka memory card) back at the camper. Reminder to pack extra “film” next time. As bummed as I was, I am glad to have a pretty decent camera on my smart phone. I can still tell the difference but Jeff can’t so the results aren’t all that bad.
The trail was generally very easy. It wasn’t side walk flat but trekking through the sandy wash and over the few rocky parts was easy enough for kids and adults alike.
One thing to note, there is not a lot of parking at this trail head. Our rather large beast of a truck barely snuck in.