August 20, 2024

Santa Rita hikes - West

The West side is "all about" Madera Canyon. This is by far the most popular hiking area in the Santa Ritas, and with good reason. For something different consider Elephants Head (see below). There are also hikes from Montosa and Agua Caliente Canyon to the south, but I don't yet talk about those here.

To my way of thinking, once you are parked at the trailhead at the end of the Madera Canyon road, there are 3 good and popular options:

Josephine Saddle Loop

This is a great favorite. Hike up the Old Baldy trail and down the Super trail. Up the west side of Madera Canyon and down the other. Of course you can do it in the other direction. I did this just recently (August, 2024) and it took me about 4 hours to do the 5.7 miles. I generally start about 1:00 PM and finish about 5:30 with a few stops. Many people are on the trail just as the sun rises and finish around noon. So I sometimes encounter stragglers when I am getting started. The first mile on the trail can be a bit hot at noon or so, but things generally cool down further up and there are more breezes. The hike down in the early evening can be quite pleasant with nice light.

The question has arisen whether it is shorter to stay on the Super trail or take the Pipeline trail cutoff. My GPS says the total distance is 5.8 staying on the Super trail and 5.7 using the cutoff. So it is really up to your taste in scenery.

My GPS says this is 5.8 miles total. 2.5 miles up the Old Baldy trail and 3.3 miles down the "Super" trail. I had thought that 4.0 miles for the super trail distance was excessive, and apparently I was right. I recently hiked this (8-20-2024), starting at noon and was back to the car by 5PM. There is 1500 feet of elevation gain, so this is a good workout. This was during monsoon season. We got an afternoon sprinkle. 2 weeks prior, I spent an hour hiking with an umbrella in steady rain.

If you are more energetic hike up to Bellows Spring or even Baldy Saddle and turn around, but pretty soon you think about going all the way to the top.

Mount Wrightson

Well, here you go - my all time favorite hike. I have no idea how many times I have done this -- perhaps 40 or 50? The trailhead in Madera Canyon is at 5500 feet and the summit is at 9453 feet, so there is 3950 feet of elevation gain, nothing to sneeze at. This makes the round trip 10.4 miles via the old trail. Using the super trail adds 1.2 miles each way.

The super trail is an alternative from Josephine Saddle to the summit. I may have used this once out of the 100 or so times I have done this hike. There is little to recommend it as it traverses the hot sunny south side of the mountain and avoids Bellows Spring and the wonderful climb through tunnels of Gambels Oak on the way to Baldy Saddle. On the other hand it offers variety and views as a loop on the descent. Best used in cooler weather as it is exposed and south facing.

Grand Tour

The idea here is to skip a visit to the Summit and just circumnavigate the mountain. I will generally hike up the old Baldy trail to Baldy Saddle, then go around the mountain using the Super trail, then continue on the Super trail to my car. This makes for 11.3 miles of hiking. If you decide to visit the summit, add 1.8 miles for 13.1 grand total

Florida Canyon

This makes for some variety once you have been up the trails in Madera Canyon a few times. The trailhead is at 4300 instead of 5500, which makes for hotter hiking in summer months. It also makes for an additional 1200 feet of elevation gain if Mt. Wrightson is your goal. If your goal is Florida Saddle (7800 feet), you end up climbing as much as you would going up Mt. Wrightson from Madera Canyon. Of course if you want an easier way to get up to Florida Saddle, you can start at Aliso Springs (6000) or Cave Creek (5800).

This trail was much nicer, passing through deep forest before the big fire in 2005. This big fire was the "Florida Fire" and devastated the Santa Rita high country. This fire was started by lightning on July 7, 2005. This is not to be confused with the April 2017 Sawmill Fire caused by some morons shooting at reactive targets.

Trip Reports

Bog Springs and above

On June 11, 2013 I hiked to Bog, Kent, and Sylvester Springs. It was a hot day (107 degrees in Tucson), but there was water flowing at each of these springs. Only Bog Springs offers a convenient and attractive basin - the other springs have water running as trickles that a person with some ingenuity could make use of. Note that you have to do a loop hike to visit all three springs (not that this is a bad thing). If you go first to Bog Springs, the trail continues on to Kent Springs. Then if you want to visit Sylvester Springs, you follow a rather steep abandoned road directly down the drainage below Kent Springs. From Sylvester Springs you can continue to follow the road down past the Bog Springs junction to the trailhead.

Elephants Head

Here is something that is not in Madera Canyon!
Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's hiking pages / tom@mmto.org