Monday, November 14, 2022 was a transition day. Sean was set to fly home to Chicago in the morning. Then in the afternoon, Patrick would arrive and we would shift into Bold Bison work mode, shooting interviews and footage for a video project. For me, it felt like an instant revisit to Saguaro National Park. The initial exploration of the Park with Sean was complete. And now it was time for a second visit connected to work travel, except that there was a gap of only a couple hours, rather than months or years, between one and the other.
In the wee hours, the hotel’s fire alarm sounded. It was persistent enough that we fully evacuated before they sounded the all clear. Sean and I had helped an older woman down the flights of the stairwell. Then they let us back into our rooms and we went back to sleep.
As had become my routine, I woke predawn, took photos of the two sides of Saguaro National Park on either side of Tucson, and returned to sleep.
Once we were actually up, Sean exercised and pulled his things together.
As we waited for the valet to pull the car around, I chatted with the woman whom we’d met in the stairwell. She was checking out that day, along with her cat. They were also waiting for the valet.
Sean and I headed downtown to Nook’s for breakfast, which was fantastic. We had banh mi benedict on crumpets, masa cakes with smashed hash browns, and griddle cakes.
Then we headed to the airport and said goodbye.
I had a little time to kill before Patrick’s flight landed, so I ran a couple errands including dropping off our postcards at the post office.
I picked up Patrick around noon, and we went straight to Five Points for lunch, my second time eating there in five days. It was that good.
Later, he settled into his room at The Graduate and we both took some calls and Zoom meetings and knocked out a little work until it was after business hours in time zones further east. Then for us it was time for the desert.
As Sean and I had done, we headed first to the Tucson Mountain District west of the city. We went up and over Gates Pass and stopped for some photos in Tucson Mountain Park, the county park just south of the National Park unit.
The Forest Preserves of Cook County Illinois this was not.
We were on a hunt for images. So this Monday afternoon visit to the Tucson Mountains was a quick and curated experience. I wanted to share some of the views I thought Patrick would like.
Next we drove into the Park and stopped at the Visitor Center so that Patrick could stamp his Passport to his National Parks. I bought some prickly pear hard candy to have in the car while we drove around.
Next we did a quick swing around Bajada Drive, the Tucson Mountain District’s graded loop road.
It was already almost 5pm, and capturing late afternoon desert light was our priority.
As we drove around the loop we looked into the washes hoping to spot Javelinas, but half the time the low sun was shining in our eyes, blinding us.
“There are probably Javelina everywhere,” said Patrick. “We just can’t see them.”
Next stop on our whirlwind photograph tour, Cam-Boh Trailhead near Panther Peak.
The same Gila Woodpecker that had scolded Sean and me Thursday evening was displeased with Patrick’s and my presence.
As we wandered around post sunset wrapping up our photo shoot, I thought I smelled Javelina musk. I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t imagining it until Patrick said he smelled it too.
We searched in vain for Javelinas.
Back at the hotel, Aiden the young 20-something valet noticed all of our camera gear as I handed him the car keys. He was also a photography enthusiast, and he recommended checking out the Santa Catalina Mountains north of the city. He said at night you could see the lights of cars snaking up and down the road into the mountains.
We had dinner at Moonstone and then each retired to our rooms to catch up on a little work before bed. We would be out and about in Tucson all the next day.
Next morning, Tuesday, November 15, 2022, Patrick and I met in the lobby at 6:30am. We had a day of taping ahead of us, but we wanted to get an early start and catch the morning light in the desert. We grabbed some coffees from the lobby coffee shop and hit the road, headed to the El Camino del Cerro Trailhead adjacent to the Tucson Mountain District.
The parking area and trailhead proper are on Pima County land at the end of a dead end road. But the access trail very quickly enters the National Park.
We spotted a hot air balloon out for a morning flight.
We chose this trailhead on the eastern side of the Tucson Mountains that morning for two reasons: the light that would soon hit the mountains above us and the proximity of the trailhead to I-10 so we could easily get across town to our first filming site.
We didn’t hike so much as wander around on the trails a bit looking for Javelinas, spotting Jackrabbits, and capturing shots.
Here it was easy to see that there are more Saguaros in the smaller Tucson Mountain District than in the Rincon Mountain District.
I can’t remember the first time I saw it, seems it was
always there, even with me in the womb, the moon.
It must have been night, above the ocean, making a path
on the waves, gilded invitation, the parchment moon.
Or the day moon, see-through-y wafer over desert, caught
in the arms of Saguaro, thin-skinned, heart-struck moon.
Blue as new milk, aquarium water, Mexican tiles, blue
as fingertips in the cold, nailbeds quick-blue arcs, half moons.
– Dorianne Laux, from Moon Ghazal
After about forty-five minutes of wandering about and not seeing any Javelinas, we returned to the car and started down toward I-10.
Sean texted from Chicago, where it was snowing that morning.
Soon we were onsite along the Santa Cruz River. Our interviews that day were with Flor Sandoval of the Sonoran Environmental Research Institute and Irene Ogata of Tucson Water. Flor was also our guide of neighborhood- and homeowner-scale water reclamation projects across the city.
The video was about River Network’s Water Now Alliance, which focuses on building trust between communities and water utilities. In addition to the Tucson interviews, we had also captured interviews and footage in New Orleans the previous September.
We’re proud of this video and really like working with River Network.
After taking us around the various project sites, we thanked Flor and said goodbye.
She had recommended Seis in Mercado San Agustin near the MSA Annex for lunch. So we headed over there. Although there was a bit of a wait, the food was excellent. And Patrick got to taste all the agua fesca flavors, so he was happy.
After lunch we drove up “A” Mountain in the heart of Tucson to get some b-roll of the city skyline. It’s called “A” Mountain because it has a huge “A” for Arizona on it. It’s that thing in the West where they put big letters on mountains for the town or school.
From “A” Mountain, we spotted some smoke rising from the Santa Catalinas. It looked potentially ominous.
We shot some street-level footage downtown and on 4th Street before returning to the hotel.
After catching up on some email, Patrick suggested we head up into the Santa Catalinas and see what the smoke was all about. There didn’t seem to be anything about it in the news, which made us think it wasn’t a wildfire, but there also wasn’t anything posted on Coronado National Forest’s website either, so maybe it wasn’t a prescribed burn. Then again, the USDA Forest Service isn’t known for its effective communications.
“Ever since my flight landed, I’ve been staring at those mountains and wanting to go up them,” admitted Patrick.
“Ok. Let’s go,” I replied.
As we headed to the northeast part of Tucson, the smoke had gotten more ominous.
Soon we were on the Mt. Lemmon Highway, curving and looping up into the National Forest.
On the way up, we stopped at a few pullouts that described the changes in the ecology the higher we climbed on this Sky Island. In terms of plant communities, it was as if we were driving from Tucson to southern Canada, passing from Sonoran Desert eventually into conifer forest. As the glaciers from the last Ice Age retreated, these plant communities were left stranded in the mountains as the basins grew hotter and drier, becoming desert.
Longtime readers know that I have a fear of heights, which is never worse than when I’m in a car going around sharp blind turns with steep drop offs, much like the one in the photo above. Usually I am more comfortable in the driver’s seat in these moments. As we approached the pictured turn, I had to pull over and let Patrick take over driving. This road in the Santa Catalinas remains the only time I actually had to give up driving, hand over the keys, and then close my eyes.
Once we were around that corner, Patrick pulled into a parking area and we took in the killer views.
We continued on, Patrick behind the wheel, and crossed a section of the road that has, for a moment, drop offs on both sides. Even Patrick, adept at and used to mountain driving because of all the time he spends in the Colorado Rockies, was unnerved by that portion of the road.
Now we were on the other side of the range with views north beyond the Santa Catalinas.
We continued on. Up here, the smoke was quite close. Given that nothing was closed, we guessed, correctly, that the fire was a prescribed burn. But it was still dramatic, and we banked some photos of fire in the West for potential future use.
We wound through pine forest past the small resort community of Summerhaven—which is like a bonkers Bavaria above the desert—before topping out at the top of Mount Lemmon, at a commanding 9,159 feet above sea level.
We arrived just at sunset with the city and both Park units below us.
It was 36 degrees up there, and Patrick regretted having changed into shorts for the drive.
He drove all the way back down because most of the upper part of the road was pretty hair-raising. But the views were worth it.
Back in town, we switched drivers and headed back to The Graduate.
We wanted to go to Blind Tiger on 4th and get green chile cheeseburgers, but it was closed. So we went back to Boca, which I enjoyed just as much the second time. Mezcal? Mole? What’s not to like?
Then we walked back through near-downtown neighborhoods to the hotel.
Next day we had reserved for desert adventure…and capturing a bit more b-roll, but mostly a day of desert adventure.
Further Reading