Tucson Mtns - King Canyon Loop

March 11, 2022 hike: King Canyon to Wasson Peak to Hugh Norris to Sendero Esperanza loop. This was done in conjunction with hiking the Hugh Norris trail, which partially overlaps in the high mountain part of the trails.

The weather was beautifully sunny with temps in the mid-60s, but there was a moderate cool wind that kept it fresh all day. Nice weather for hiking!

The trail is a lot easier than the Catalina trails. It is much smoother, better marked, shorter and less steep. It is rated moderate by most trail apps, which seems about right.

Photo 1 shows the lower King Canyon desert vista looking up (northeast) the canyon toward the Wasson peak area. It is certainly clear why Saguaro Park gets its name from this photo.

Photo 2 looks down King Canyon (southwest) from above the Saddle. Lot's of nice views up there.

Photo 3 looks northwest from above the King Canyon Saddle at the Catalina Mountains. Pima Canyon is just slightly to the right of the center of the photo. Mount Lemmon is the highest peak, slightly to the left of the center of the photo.

Photo 4 looks south down the spine of the Tucson mountains from Wasson Peak. The Santa Rita mountains are in the distance.

Photo 5 is a video from Wasson Peak. It starts looking north up Oro Valley, pans across the Catalina's and then the Rincons in the east, continuing south to the Santa Ritas in the distance and the Tucson mountains in the foreground, then toward the west looking across the valley to the west of Tucson and the mountain ranges beyond it.

Photo 6 is another of my artistic attempts, using the 15x telephoto setting to generate the moody grey landscape features. This photo looks west from the Sendero Esperanza trail (the return trail on the King Canyon loop) toward the Quinlan mountains. I think the object on top of the mountains just to the right of the center of the photo is Kitt Peak Observatory.

Photo 7 is a view down King Canyon from the Sendero Esperanza trail, in the mid-afternoon sun.

Photos 8-14 show some of the wildflowers along the trail. The wildflower season is really starting to get underway, but I think we are probably 2-4 weeks from the peak.

It was a beautiful day. The great views were excellent and the weather made the hiking quite nice. The only downside was that it was very busy - more than 10 people on Wasson Peak at lunch.

Hike stats: 7.9 miles with 1,863 feet of vertical to a peak of 4,688 feet in 3 hours 47 minutes. As with many of my other hikes in 2021/22, extensive photo and video taking added significant time to the hike.