Distant Hills

Mt. Lemmon punches up from the flat desert floor, towering over Tucson, Arizona. From the dry washes and dusty streets of the city, the road twists and turns some 5700 vertical feet up the mountain’s flanks, eventually ending in the town of Summerhaven, nestled just one thousand feet below the peak’s 9100 foot summit. A vibrant artist’s community in the summer, and a small ski resort town in the winter, the town at the end of road that runs up through the canyons and ridges, scrub grass, and forests, is an inviting detour from Tucson’s comparatively drab cityscape.

I flew in and out of Tucson a fair amount when I was flight instructing out of Phoenix, some 100 miles to the north. I’d routinely take students there, following the straight lines of Interstate 10 across the Sonoran Desert until the craggy summit of Wasson Peak would come into view, marking the beginning of the end of the flight.

Despite those semi-frequent visits, I never spent any time on the ground beyond the airport’s perimeter fence until years later when I needed ankle surgery and a doctor in the area was recommended. A pre-surgical consult in January gave me an extra day, and to escape the almost 80 degree winter afternoon, I headed north in my rental car, up the mountain and into a below zero winter wonderland that kept me shivering in my car despite the heat set so high.

A few months later I returned with my wife for the actual surgery. We arrived mid-day and to take my mind off the next day’s festivities, I again pointed the car north, this time to a much more temperate mountain and the epic sunset that we watched from it.

Mt Lemmon, Arizona 2021

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