March is one of my favorite months in the Arizona Sonoran Desert. I took an off-trail hike yesterday. My destination was Cat Mountain, the dominant feature of the Ajo Pass which leads up and out of the Tucson basin heading west.
The trailhead is at the end of Sarasota Road off of Ajo. It's only five minutes from our home, and the trail leads up and over the Tucson Mountains into Tucson proper. Mountain bikers appreciate this relatively easy trail. It winds along an arroyo in a break between Cat Mountain and Cat's little moutain sister, Catback. Both are part of the Tucson Mountain Park, 44,000 acres of pristine desert surrounding our little neighborhood, Tucson Estates II.
I left the trail and made my way up and across the western flank of Cat Mountain, to a vantage point which overlooks my neighborhood, the older community of Tucson Estates I, and several newer communities built in the last five years. There's also a Boy Scout Ranch with nearly 400 acres of open land along Kinney Road west of the mountains.
Because the varied terrain includes flatland, foothills, and even sheer cliffs, this place is a birders paradise. I saw one Peregrine falcon and an Anna's hummingbird during my four hour hike, as well as several Cactus wrens (Arizona's state bird) and a Canyon wren.
The plants which flower in March provide essential nourishment to the many varieties of hummingbird which are migrating back from Central America to their summering grounds in the United States.
Several REALTORS specialize in this particular area of Tucson, and prices are very reasonable.
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