last week: Mt. Wrightson.

Last Friday, a couple of friends and I hiked in the Santa Rita mountains south of Tucson. We climbed all the way to the top of Mt. Wrightson (9453').



...a few photos from the hike up from Madera Canyon ...

...beginning with a cell-phone-camera shot of a wild tom-turkey, in full strut down by some b&b cabins:

...we had just entered the Canyon preserve, and my camera was in my backpack, so all I could do was quickly open my cellphone...There must have been over a dozen wild turkeys all over the parking lot and crossing the road...

...a bit further up, right as we began hiking, we saw these deer:

...and already, a few wildflowers are beginning to bloom up over a mile in elevation. (The hiking trail begins at 5400'.) These are Indian paintbrush:

...after several hours of climbing and switchbacking (well past the point where I hiked back in early November), we were approaching the rocky summit, with a bit of snow still in the crevices on the northern side:

...The next day, this past Saturday, a storm rolled through and several inches of snow blanketed the mountains above 8000 feet...

...and finally, approaching the summit--this view looking south past a forest-fire-burned ridge, looking toward Mexico:
The summit is bare, except for the foundations of a fire-lookout built back in the 1920's--a welcome windbreak to sit behind, especially last Friday when there were gusts up to 40 and 50 miles per hour...

...looking back down over the entrance to Madera Canyon, to the desert floor seven thousand feet below, with some mines (and their leaching pits) off to the NW...the green line in front of them are the pecan orchards that stretch for miles along I-19 in the Santa Cruz valley:


...from the summit off to the Mustang Mountains to the east, over the grasslands of Sonoita and Elgin--incidentally, where parts of the film "Oklahoma" were filmed and where there are a few vineyards (!) in southern Arizona's 'wine country'...

...and a 'hiker's-eye-view' looking to the north, with Tucson and the Santa Catalina mountains in the distance:
Finally, driving away in the evening...camera already put away in the backpack, so this is from my cell-phone:

Mountains in all directions from Tucson; nice to be able to get 'above it all'...

The uncertainty in the education-job-world continues...