The TrAiLbUs's, SonicFJ and family, microbe, and I met for a day of fun in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. The day promised to be awesome with a few 'firsts' for me including bringing fresh sushi along for munching in the mountains, and having my girlfriend along for her first group 4x4 outing!

We head out and stopped to air down on the dirt road leading to the mountains.

I had to drive my girlfriend to the airport which left me on the south side of Tucson around lunchtime with no real schedule for the rest of the day... sounds like a perfect excuse to drive into the Santa Rita Mountains. I've been through Gunsight Pass a number of times, but mainly I wanted to rediscover a trail that I'd found a few months ago exploring the area near Sycamore Canyon. At that time I had no GPS on me, no maps, and no familiarity with the area. This time however, I was armed with GPS, topo maps, and aerial photography of the region. Woohoo!

On the topo maps I found what I thought was the cool route I'd taken the other time and head in that direction. Gunsight Pass is the most popular route in the area and features the widest and smoothest trail. The area in Sycamore Canyon has tighter vegetation, is generally more narrow and a bit more rough though still nothing to worry about.

There are a few things you have to slow down for, but nothing that could be considered crawling...