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- Joined
- Nov 7, 2004
- Messages
- 17,406
- Reaction score
- 5,547
- Location
- Sun Lakes & Show Low, Arizona
- First Name
- Brian
Mt Lemmon, that is. And yes, there are two "m's" in Lemmon. It is the highest peak in the Santa Catalina mountains that form the northern border of the Tucson valley. Mt Lemmon is the most southern ski resort in the U.S. with the ski valley at 8200' and the top of the ski lift at 9125'.
Total mileage for the day was about 275 miles
Elevation varied from 1200' to 9100' and I can assure you that the Connie did not run as well at 9100' but she still managed to carry us both and average 40 mpg.
Temps varied from about 75 when we left the house at 0545 to a low of about 65 on parts of the mountain to 105 on the way back home.
Having grown up in Tucson and raced up (and down) the mountain many a time in my Falcon Sprint I was looking forward to revisiting my past on the bike, but first we had to get there. It was a long trip just to ride 26 miles "up the hill", but it was worth it.
Here's the path we had to follow.
You can reach the summit from the back side via the "Control Road" out of Oracle but it's only fit for Adventure Bike type riders and 4-wheel drive vehicles. That was the original path up the mountain before the existing highway was built.
This is only part of the "squiggly" part, but you can get an idea as to why this is a fun ride to take and make a day of.
We hit the road at 0545 and Brenda got this shot soon after sunrise.
That's where we're going. It's too bad there's not a tunnel through the mountain that would drop us at the base of the other side.
But noooooo... we have to go all the way around that ridge to the right and then come back across the face of the range to get to the Catalina Highway.
I had estimated hitting our breakfast spot (The 5 and Diner) in Tucson at 7:30, and we rolled into the parking lot at 7:23. Pretty good guess. After stuffing ourselves with waffles, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and biscuits we waddled back out to the bike and headed across town via River Road. This road was a road racer's delight "back in the day" and it still has plenty of fun built into it, but with all the housing developments that have built up over the past 35 years you can't rip and roar the way we used to (as stupid kids).
Soon enough we reached the Catalina Highway and began the slow climb on the long straightaway. This was where we did our drag racing in my high school days. All we needed was a Radio Shack scanner tuned to the Pima County Sheriff's frequency and we were long gone shortly after they'd dispatch a deputy, but back then there was maybe one house every 5 sq miles. Today the houses are on top of each other.
There are a lot of tar snakes at the lower elevations (this was about 3000').
But it becomes much better at the higher elevations.
From the first overlook. In my youth you probably couldn't have counted more than 100 rooftops near the base of the mountain.
Climbing up further and looking back. You can just get a glimpse of Tucson between the two ridges.
Just when you thought you had left civilization behind you, lo and behold you are stopped by a traffic signal on the mountain.
However, this did come in handy on the way down as we had Sammy Slowdriver blocking a group of about six of us and he absolutely refused to use one of the turn-out lanes to let us go by. So when we hit the red light at the signal I just happened to "filter" my way to the front and then left the entire crowd behind on my trip downhill. I'm sure everyone else was quite frustrated with him by the time they reached the bottom.
From another one of the overlooks you can see part of the route we took on the way up, as well as Tucson in the distance.
Look up and to the left and you'll see the next level we'll be traveling on soon.
We took the ski lift ride while we were there. It's about a 30 min round trip but we got off at the top and walked around a bit. There are lots of radio towers at the summit and I'm sure the Hams in the Tucson area get great reception out of these repeaters.
Here's a shot from the top of the lift looking north. We're parked in that little parking lot at the bottom of the photo.
You never know who you're going to run into on a ski lift. Here's Smokey making sure no one is smoking while on the lift. This mountain had a devastating fire back in 2003 that wiped out much of the timber and most of the homes at the higher elevations.
Just some of the many neat rock formations on the mountain. There were also masses of bikes riding the hill this day too. You can also see the brake lights of Sammy Slowdriver in the car entering the curve. He braked into the curves, through the curves, out of the curves...
Now we're heading back down the mountain and you can see some of the curves ahead of us on the right side of the photo. Tucson is in the far distance. You might also notice that it had rained on the front side of the mountain while we were at the summit, so I had to slow it down a bit to keep SWMBO from beating me on the back side of the helmet.
Soon enough we were back down in the desert heat and headed for home. But we did take our time while on the mountain to stop and smell the flowers.
And finally, a shot of the moto couple. It sure is easy to see who has stayed in shape all these years and who really needs to get on the exercise bandwagon. This shot was taken on a bridge overlooking a creek that is a very special place for my mom. She told me about it so we followed her directions until we found it, and then stopped to look around for a while.
I hope you enjoyed the trip. Stay tuned for the next installment which should be Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure if we're going to make it to the Grand Canyon this year or not; that may have to wait until next May or so.
The inaugural TWT Arizona Pie Run is this coming Saturday and we're going to Strawberry AZ. Supposedly there is a good pie place there, but no one knows for sure. The town is so small we were told to just ask around and someone will point us to it. I'll try to get some pictures of that event. Right now there's only about six riders signed up, so we'll see what the turnout is like.
Total mileage for the day was about 275 miles
Elevation varied from 1200' to 9100' and I can assure you that the Connie did not run as well at 9100' but she still managed to carry us both and average 40 mpg.
Temps varied from about 75 when we left the house at 0545 to a low of about 65 on parts of the mountain to 105 on the way back home.
Having grown up in Tucson and raced up (and down) the mountain many a time in my Falcon Sprint I was looking forward to revisiting my past on the bike, but first we had to get there. It was a long trip just to ride 26 miles "up the hill", but it was worth it.
Here's the path we had to follow.
You can reach the summit from the back side via the "Control Road" out of Oracle but it's only fit for Adventure Bike type riders and 4-wheel drive vehicles. That was the original path up the mountain before the existing highway was built.
This is only part of the "squiggly" part, but you can get an idea as to why this is a fun ride to take and make a day of.
We hit the road at 0545 and Brenda got this shot soon after sunrise.
That's where we're going. It's too bad there's not a tunnel through the mountain that would drop us at the base of the other side.
But noooooo... we have to go all the way around that ridge to the right and then come back across the face of the range to get to the Catalina Highway.
I had estimated hitting our breakfast spot (The 5 and Diner) in Tucson at 7:30, and we rolled into the parking lot at 7:23. Pretty good guess. After stuffing ourselves with waffles, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and biscuits we waddled back out to the bike and headed across town via River Road. This road was a road racer's delight "back in the day" and it still has plenty of fun built into it, but with all the housing developments that have built up over the past 35 years you can't rip and roar the way we used to (as stupid kids).
Soon enough we reached the Catalina Highway and began the slow climb on the long straightaway. This was where we did our drag racing in my high school days. All we needed was a Radio Shack scanner tuned to the Pima County Sheriff's frequency and we were long gone shortly after they'd dispatch a deputy, but back then there was maybe one house every 5 sq miles. Today the houses are on top of each other.
There are a lot of tar snakes at the lower elevations (this was about 3000').
But it becomes much better at the higher elevations.
From the first overlook. In my youth you probably couldn't have counted more than 100 rooftops near the base of the mountain.
Climbing up further and looking back. You can just get a glimpse of Tucson between the two ridges.
Just when you thought you had left civilization behind you, lo and behold you are stopped by a traffic signal on the mountain.
However, this did come in handy on the way down as we had Sammy Slowdriver blocking a group of about six of us and he absolutely refused to use one of the turn-out lanes to let us go by. So when we hit the red light at the signal I just happened to "filter" my way to the front and then left the entire crowd behind on my trip downhill. I'm sure everyone else was quite frustrated with him by the time they reached the bottom.
From another one of the overlooks you can see part of the route we took on the way up, as well as Tucson in the distance.
Look up and to the left and you'll see the next level we'll be traveling on soon.
We took the ski lift ride while we were there. It's about a 30 min round trip but we got off at the top and walked around a bit. There are lots of radio towers at the summit and I'm sure the Hams in the Tucson area get great reception out of these repeaters.
Here's a shot from the top of the lift looking north. We're parked in that little parking lot at the bottom of the photo.
You never know who you're going to run into on a ski lift. Here's Smokey making sure no one is smoking while on the lift. This mountain had a devastating fire back in 2003 that wiped out much of the timber and most of the homes at the higher elevations.
Just some of the many neat rock formations on the mountain. There were also masses of bikes riding the hill this day too. You can also see the brake lights of Sammy Slowdriver in the car entering the curve. He braked into the curves, through the curves, out of the curves...
Now we're heading back down the mountain and you can see some of the curves ahead of us on the right side of the photo. Tucson is in the far distance. You might also notice that it had rained on the front side of the mountain while we were at the summit, so I had to slow it down a bit to keep SWMBO from beating me on the back side of the helmet.
Soon enough we were back down in the desert heat and headed for home. But we did take our time while on the mountain to stop and smell the flowers.
And finally, a shot of the moto couple. It sure is easy to see who has stayed in shape all these years and who really needs to get on the exercise bandwagon.
This shot was taken on a bridge overlooking a creek that is a very special place for my mom. She told me about it so we followed her directions until we found it, and then stopped to look around for a while.I hope you enjoyed the trip. Stay tuned for the next installment which should be Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure if we're going to make it to the Grand Canyon this year or not; that may have to wait until next May or so.
The inaugural TWT Arizona Pie Run is this coming Saturday and we're going to Strawberry AZ. Supposedly there is a good pie place there, but no one knows for sure. The town is so small we were told to just ask around and someone will point us to it. I'll try to get some pictures of that event. Right now there's only about six riders signed up, so we'll see what the turnout is like.
Hard to see much detail in many of them, but I could make out your spare tire... 
Good to see you finally back on the road 
I noticed the same thing in another report from someone else and was thinking maybe my monitor might be whacked, but I checked at work and it was the same there. It is not all the pics, but quite a few. Part of the problem may be the position of the sun with respect to your subject. If you are shooting into the sun, your subjects foreground subjects will often be dark. Forcing the flash to fire in these cases can make a big difference. This is also where having a good flash on a camera can really help, but many of the P/S cameras have lame flashes. Mine certainly does. However, once you are aware of it, you can usually work around it. Another thing you can do is point exposure metering instead of wide area metering. The place where you put the point will ideally be properly exposed, but this could result in the background totally washing out. Just gotta play with it. You happen to be lucky to live in a place where there is no shortage of photo ops 