Sentinel Peak (Tucson)
March 18, 2017
883m
Tucson, AZ
There are quite a few “urban summits” in the city of Tucson, AZ and Sentinel Peak is pretty much the least impressive among those. There’s a paved road bringing hundreds of people up each day for various purposes, and attaining the highest point is a mere 5-minute walk from the upper parking lot. There’s nothing really exciting about this little peak especially considering this’d be my 600th summit, but as a visitor from the far north this seemed like a good introductory objective especially considering I only had an hour or so to kill before sunset.
As I mentioned there’s a paved road so I just have to follow the instructions on my iPhone. The Waze app surely knew how to calculate the short-cuts and soon enough I had no idea where I was driving towards, but I trusted technology and it did not let me down. The only problem was the crowds and not wanting to deal with the parking lot gong show I opted to park a couple hundred meters down on the road, right below the famous “A”. There’s a bit of history about this large “A” – constructed and painted by some local U of Arizona students in the 1910s, hence this peak also has the unofficial name “A” Mountain. It was about 15 min walk to the summit from where I parked.
As planned I waited on the summit for about 40 minutes watching the sun dropped down below the horizon and then the evening alpenglow panoramas. I was not expecting the city of Tucson being that big but guess I underestimated the population in the America..
Eventually after taking enough pictures I leisurely went back down. I joined the hordes and took a direct route down the painted “A” back to where I parked and it’s pretty fun. And then it’s time for the evening routine (Safeway and then restaurant) although I did not make a stop in McDonalds. The internet services in the Super 8 Motel was pretty good so there’s no point in killing time in McDonalds. And then there goes the next day.