April 2018 Tucson Part 1

Tucson is a great city with fabulous golf weather and lots of interesting things to do. I played golf 3 times, went on 3 hikes in the mountains, visited downtown Tucson (with its famous 4th Avenue), and toured the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Keep reading for details and pictures. Here a shot from downtown Tucson.

This restaurant was walking distance from where I stayed, but I did not actually go there.

First, I played the Dove Mountain (Nicklaus designed) golf course. This one is very expensive but very scenic and a classic desert golf course. If you are not in the fairway there, you are in the desert and you do not want to be there (trust me on that!). I lost several golf balls to the desert and also had to play from desert waste areas a few times. I did not score well but had a great time. 

Next, I took a few days off from golf and did 3 hikes in 4 days. The first one was Agua Caliente South.  That one was the toughest, 2500 ft rise in elevation and 4.5 miles up (plus 4.5 miles down) winding around canyons and peaks. There are awesome views from a lot of places as you can see below. The first 1/2 mile is really tough and there are not many flat places on the way up. It was very windy at the top. It is more like a mountain than a hill!

The next one was my favorite hike. It was Seven Falls, a 4 miles in (and 4 miles out) hike into Bear Canyon to see a waterfall (actually a couple of waterfalls - maybe 7!), with a wading pool beneath the waterfall. This one is moderate, not as tough as Agua Caliente, but still challenging.  I met a couple of retired snowbirds at the beginning that were planning to head back to Pennsylvania for the summer in the next week. This hike had some shade and it was breezy and cooler at the waterfall (the peak). This was an elevation change of about 1000 feet up. 

My last hike (in the Tucson area) was in Saguaro National Park on Apr. 21, one of the several free National Park days this year. I am planning to get my lifetime National Park Pass soon when I turn 62 but I am not quite there yet. There are many trails in the National Park. I did a loop up to Wassom Peak, the tallest spot in the park. It was 3.5 miles up and 4.5 miles back. It was also a really nice hike and very challenging.  I would say the level of difficulty is in between Seven Falls and Agua Caliente. I think this one was also 2000 feet in elevation.

The second golf round was at the Forty Niner Golf Club and the scenery there was great. You could see the mountains from almost every hole and missing the fairway was not that penal. It was more like a normal golf course and I played pretty well, with a 39 on the back nine. I played with 2 locals who were fun to play with. They told me about several good courses to play. There are a lot of quality golf courses in the Tucson area. 

More from Tucson in the next post.