December 29, 2024
Tucson area hikes - Catalinas - Sabino Canyon
Sabino Canyon is its own special and unique thing.
It is extremely popular and sort of, not really a wilderness experience.
I'm sure someone will read this statement and become angry.
You pay to park, and then you can pay to ride a shuttle up the canyon.
You can also walk the road and various trails along the road.
This can certainly be enjoyable, but it is something different from
everything else I talk about in these write-ups.
Due to the distance you need to cover walking the road this makes an
impractical trailhead for hikes further into the Catalinas.
Sabino Canyon Dayhikes
The Parking Lot is at 2726 feet.
Sabino Canyon itself is wildly popular. Nature is striving to return it to its proper state,
which many people oddly view as some kind of catastrophe. It is certainly possible to hike
out and back on the road used by the tram. The best option here though is to exit east and up
to the "phoneline trail" after about 1.2 miles on the road. This is 4.7 miles each way from the
parking lot, making a 9.4 mile loop with only 874 feet of elevation gain (from 2726 to 3600).
Sabino to Bear Canyon Loop (17 miles, 2060 feet)
The idea here is to hike up Sabino Canyon to Sabino Basin, then east to meet the Bear Canyon
trail and then hike down Bear Canyon. This covers a lot more interesting backcountry without
a lot of elevation gain (the high point is about 4800 feet just before you drop into Bear Canyon).
Have any comments? Questions?
Drop me a line!
Tom's hiking pages / tom@mmto.org