Pima Canyon to the Dam

That's Tucson. Yes, that's a city down there.

For this month's hike, Laura, Jack, Jenna, and I went to Pima Canyon to hike to something called "the dam." According to the description, the hike was supposed to take us through beautiful scenery along a stream, complete with waterfalls.

I'm here to tell you that the given description is not entirely accurate.

This hike had a few similarities to the Ventana Canyon hike, which made sense since the two trails eventually connect somewhere in the mountains.

The Pima Canyon trail began, as Ventana did, with a trail that passed through private property for a while. However, we entered the wilderness after a short walk, since the trail almost immediately forced us to climb up the side of the mountain. The climb wore us out pretty quickly at the start of the hike, but there were no other climbs like it for the rest of the hike, so it wasn't so bad. It was kind of the opposite of Ventana in that way.

We had Minas Tirith cheering us on.

After climbing the hill into the canyon, we soon found ourselves crossing the suggestion of a river bed. It was, of course, dry as a bone, but that's to be expected. This is Tucson, after all, and we had barely even begun the hike. Surely there would be water further along.

There was.

However, the water we did find was minimal and mostly still, buzzing with flies and bees. It was unfortunate.

Despite the lack of water, there were lots of trees and greenery all over the place. it was really impressive. There were times when I was walking around and could hardly believe I was in a desert.

Look ma! No cactuses!

We only took a few short breaks along the way. The atmosphere was very nice, especially among the trees, and the weather was perfect.

Best of all, the path was winding through mountains, and it looked like we would finally have a path that didn't end with a framed picture of Tucson!

Pictured: not Tucson.

We also passed by several nice-looking camp grounds, which I found a little strange since we were so close to civilization.

I dub this the Treethrone.

Eventually, though, the path began to climb steadily, which started tiring everyone out. We saw no sign of any dam, hardly any water, and exactly zero waterfalls three hours into the hike. We weren't even sure what we were looking for.

Is this cactus growing out of these two rocks the dam?

Just as everyone was getting ready to turn around, though, we found what we were looking for: some shallow holes dug into the granite, which were apparently once used by Indians to make medicine.

Pictured: Medicine

There was no water and not a hint of a waterfall anywhere nearby. The trail turned out to be very anticlimactic, but what are you gonna do. It was a nice trail up until this point, and at least there's no--crap.

Pictured: Tucson