Trees in Fog. Mt Lemmon, Arizona, 2017
Southern Arizona is the land of “islands in the sky“, that is, a land of many smaller isolated mountain ranges that poke high above the surrounding low-lying deserts.
The Santa Catalina Mountains on the north edge of Tucson is one such “island”, rising well over a mile above the surrounding Sonoran cacti and dry desert arroyos. The high point of the Catalinas is Mt. Lemmon at 9,171 feet above mean sea level. Tucson swelters (at least in summer) down below at about 2,400 feet MSL.
This near 7,000-foot change in elevation is the equivalent of many hundreds of miles of latitude change and the corresponding huge change in geographic life zones. But, here in southern Arizona, you can cover those vast distances, and life zones, in a mere 30-minute drive up the Catalina Highway (or a couple hours of hard cycling!).
Dry desert and cactus to aspen and fir in 30 minutes!
In summer, this trip makes for a welcome respite from the extreme heat down low.
In winter, the trip can take you from shorts and sandals weather up to an icy snowscape where folks (many seeing snow for the first time, me thinks) can be found building huge snowmen in the backs of their pickup trucks…a fun novelty to haul back down the mountain to show Aunt Hilda, dontcha know!
The above image, from yesterday, was made while the latest storm was still covering the mountain with wet snow and fog.
Down low, just below the fog line and at about the same time, the water poured off the slopes via myriad arroyos that are normally bone dry for most of the year:
Post-Storm Runoff, #3. Catalina Highway, Arizona, 2017
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