Mile 571 – Stealth To Mile 589 – Stealth
Today we leave the low desert for the first sky island heading southbound: Mt. Lemmon. The top is around 8000′ elevation where we’ll be back in pine forest. The extreme amount of diversity in such a small area makes this section special. We’ve been looking forward to this!
As we watched the clouds forming on the mountain in the distance we suspected we might need to alter our plans a bit. The weather forecast confirmed it: 1-3 inches of snow expected on top with rian/sleet down lower. We’re set up for cold weather, but not for wet, snowy conditions. We need to avoid this storm.
The original plan was to hike most of the way up today and then over and back down tomorrow. Instead, we’ll go up just a little way today and camp at a low enough elevation to avoid the really low temperatures expected overnight.
The consequence of this, however, is that we won’t have time to get all the way over and back down tomorrow. This raises the possibility of needing to camp near the top. While the precipitation will have ended by then, the low temperatures will remain. There is an option for a warm place to stay in the tiny town of Summerhaven at the peak, but it’s tricky…
RocketWalk 