A highlight of our rides from Tubac was a climb up Mt Hopkins, 20 miles that gain 5,600' to the summit at 8,600'. The mountain is home to the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory.
We could see the top from our rental house in Tubac, the little white spot on the peak in the middle of this photo:
The ride starts on friendly pavement off route 19 between Green Valley and Tubac.
It turns to dirt shortly past the visitor's center at eight miles or so, and gets steeper than it looks.
The dirt wasn't as long as we expected, just four or five miles, then back to pavement, with a proper kick up at the end, some 20+% up around to the tippy top.
From there we could appreciate what we'd climbed, through the staff village just below the summit,
and the switchbacks farther down.
The views all around to the north, west and south are spectacular; to the east there's an even higher peak but you have to hike it apparently. Looking west you can see the bottom of the road coming up from the visitor's center and the green belt of Tubac.
A cool thing about this building at the top is the signs alerting people that it might rotate.
If you need one more thing to check out before you go get your work done, click here for the Relive animation of our route through a topo-map setting, silly but fun.
March 14, out of Soledad
March 15, Palmdale
March 16, Goat Canyon Trestle
Dirt and switchbacks. Looks like a proper ride to me. Love the group selfie too!
ReplyDeleteSuper cool!
ReplyDeleteYou guys look great! Keep on truckin’
ReplyDeleteLooks like quite the climb! Loving your La Honda gear.:)
ReplyDeleteThat was me.
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