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Tucson, Arizona 2016

Guthrie Peak Trail Hike - part 4

Our Crazy Post Retirement Wanderings Hiking and Triking


Guthrie Peak Trail Hike - Part 4

The Green Mountain trail starts at the middle Bear trailhead, just upmountain from the Bug Springs trailhead along the catalina highway. This hike amounts to hiking up upper Bear canyon until one reaches the saddle, and then following the saddle ridge on around to the right as it goes higher, and then it dips back down a couple hundred feet, and then goes up to the top of Guthrie mountain.

Four weeks before I did this hike, there was a 60 inch deep snow accumulation up on the mountains. I didn't realize that there was that much snow that fell, but even withstanding that information, I figured that the snow would have melted off given that the temperatures all January were about 20F above normal daily highs.

But I proved to be wrong about that, and when I attempted this hike, there was a little snow in the elevations from about 6,000 to about 6,700. But above that elevation, there was quite a bit of snow. We encountered somewhere in the 36 to 40 inche snow depth, especially in the shady areas, or on the northern facades of the mountains.

There is information about Guthrie mountain trail on hikearizona.com, It's a Arizona trails website, and it's a great resource for people who are looking for a hiking trail, especially near Tucson, Az.

hikearizona.com provides lots of very useful information, including distance, elevation, AEG, elevation gain, average duration time of hike, and a write up of what to expect.

The main idea of mountain trail hiking is to get fresh air, good exercise that is a good experience and is good for me, and is a pleasant pastime.

This is a trail that one could probably hike in the summer with elevations peaking out about 7,200 feet, or about 12 to 15F below the temperatures in the valley, plus there's quite a bit of shade on this trail, so one would not have the full sun load on much of this trail.

Hiking in Arizona in the fall, winter and spring is usually very nice. Only risk in winter is that you can have rainstorms, which translate to snowstorms in the mountains from December- March. Ice is the enemy of the mountain hiker. Low friction surfaces are not good. Hiking poles and crampons are useful in dealing with snow and ice, but one still needs to be careful. But the rewards are definitely there for the careful planning winter hiker. This particular trail has a few places where snow and ice could be a problem, but with poles the trail wasn't too bad, except up on top where the deep snow was still on the trail.

We started out about 9:30AM on the hike, and it too most of the day to hike up the about 1,800 feet of elevation to the peak half a mile short of the peak we were hoping to reach (Mount Guthrie). We got back in the late afternoon after 4:00PM.

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    Last Update: March 14, 2016

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