Friday, 27 February 2015

Scenic Drive to Mt Lemmon

Shayne, Melanie, Don and I decided to go on a two day trip to Tucson. On our first day we drove the scenic road up Mt Lemmon. This is an interesting drive because in 30 miles you climb to over 9000 feet and go through six different biomes. 

We began in the Sonoran Desert Biome familiar to us with the Saguaro cacti. Right now the Brittle Bush (yellow) and Fairy dusters (pink) are blooming. Also, because of the winter rains the ocotillo are greening and some are already blooming their flamelike tips. 

We climbed in elevation to the next biome, the semi desert grasslands, where I actually saw a white tailed deer. Then we moved into the oak forest biome that was more like scrub brush.  The leaves on these oak trees are unlike the leaves on our Manitoba oaks. These ones are just small elongated ovals. But the bark is familiar; very grey and rough textured. 

We stopped at Windy Point Vista to walk around on the rocks and look down the valley. It was very windy as the air moves up the valley. This location was the transition between oak and pine trees. 

As we drove on and climbed in elevation the temperature drop was very noticeable. We even saw snow!  

The end of our destination took us to Summerville, a summer tourist destination with cabins, where we had a bit of lunch at the Cookie Cabin. We resisted having a cookie. Each one was as big as a dinner plate!








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