September 26, 2023

Tucson area hikes - the Santa Ritas -- Guidebooks

I have 3 guidebooks: All of these books are interesting, especially when you get interested in investigating hikes other than those that start in Madera Canyon and head up to Mt. Wrightson.

Exploring the Santa Rita Mountains - east side edition

The guide by Tomasi is subtitled "East Side Edition", but as there are no other editions, I will say no more about that. His descriptions are accurate, thorough, and up to date, (circa 2013). Of course the book is almost 20 years newer than the Leavengood guide, so that isn't entirely surprising. The unfortunate part about Tomasi's guide is that it is impossible to get. It seems like very few copies were published and they found their way to a small handful of select people. One of those people loaned me his copy, and I am greatly enjoying it. I consider it a treasure, primarily for its content, but also because of its rarity.

Tomasi describes east side hikes (thus omitting the popular west side incuding Madera Canyon). His hikes begin from FSR (Forest Service Road) 62 (Box Canyon road), Highway 83 (south of the Box Canyon junction) or from Highway 82 (the road to Nogales via Patagonia). He thus omits the north "Rosemont" ridge, which is probably just as well given the heartbreak and difficulty of access due to the proposed mine.

I have transposed his list of hikes to my east and south area descriptions, along with some notes and descriptions of my own visits, for those see:

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's hiking pages / [email protected]