My wife and I lived in Tucson for six years while she was in grad school. What a beautiful video. I miss the natural beauty of the surrounding areas. I was told there are six to seven different ecosystems between downtown Tucson in Mount lemmon. Amazing.
You think this is beautiful now, but the monsoons have come and the desert is alive! Just gorgeous. All of this is just outside my back door. I grew up running all over Old Spanish Trail desert before it became a monument. If you decide to drive the monument at this time, July, please remember that flash floods are a common occurrence at this time of year and every year people die from thinking they can just drive through that running wash. You can't. Period. The mountains you see to the East of the driver are the Rincon Mountains and there's a really nice trail up there for hiking but the Rincons are often the focal point for monsoon storms so be careful of fast run off and incredible lightning storms. Enjoy our desert but please be respectful of the environment, for your own safety. Even if you're just going to drive the trail, take water with you (and a comb to pull the cholla out of your pants). As my father used to say, in the desert, you are one busted fuel pump away from death if you don't take water. As an example, three weeks ago it was 117 degrees out there. Not survivable. Now that the rains have come its in the 80's-90's and absolutely lovely. Thank you so much for the video. I really enjoyed this with my morning tea. Edit: the Rincon Mountain trail cannot(as far as I know) be reached from Old Spanish Trail. The trail head is at the end of Speedway Blvd. just a a mile or so north of the monument. Just take Harrison rd or Houghton rd north from the monument to Speedway blvd and then head east. Enjoy!
My father has lived by the monument for the last 30 or so years ❤️ every other year I'm there visiting I always make time to drive to the monument at least five times ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for sharing your personal videos. They are inspirational to me. Besides, I really like the way you do and design your travels and videos, just talking the essential and letting the pictures and landscapes speak for themselves. All the places are beautiful. I discovered your channel on youtube last year and I've loved it ever since. Greetings from Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Saguaro national monument west, They are nice my favorite place here in Tucson is Reddington pass. Look up Tanque Verde falls. So fun beautiful but during monsoon so dangerous. Been in Tucson for last 45 years. Never want to leave.
Ironically I literally was searching up Tucson Video's and you popped up , The ironic part is i watched more then a few of your videos , you were their just in time
Greetings Tim & thank you for the nice videos. I enjoy your method of leaving out music and narrating. Please keep the videos coming & regards from Ody Slim
Magnificent Saguaro . Natural scenario , I'd only see such natural sites , but not the cities of USA. Want to ride a horse in this Park , mesmerizing place , how must it be without roads in the 1800s . I'm from Salisbury Park Pune , we have beautiful flora and fauna , but not like Saguaro Park. Thanks for the documentary , (got a free ride into Tucson ).
If anyone is interested, slowly traveling a low traffic road at night in the summer will most likely turn up a snake or two. Rattlesnakes crawl out on the roads at night to soak up the warmth from the pavement. we used to hunt them. Just remember that they are rattlesnakes and a bite can kill you! Don't play with them. Night also brings out coyotes, badgers, and other creepy crawlies like tarantulas. Down in a couple of those canyons as you head up the mountain (when the road starts getting steep) there are a couple old cars that were pushed off the road by some colleges kids (that's the story I heard). They were old and rusted out when I lived there back in the 60s.
Just looked at your index. You've misspelled Molino. You spelled it Malino. When I lived in Tucson in the 60s & 70s. There was a lookout point called Hitchcock Point. Is it no longer there? That was my favorite look out point. I'll be disappointed if they removed it. Back then you could see the Santa Ritas from there like they were across the street. The PVs are so beautiful when they are in bloom! I miss the desert. I went to Palo Verde High. A loooong time ago. One thing that always irritated me about the campus is the lack of PVs. It's covered with olive trees! I'm allergic to olive trees! And they make a hell of a mess. Don't know what they were thinking. I don't miss the heat though. Thanks for sharing. I used to drive up there in the monsoon season and park up high on the side of the mountain and watch the storms. Tucson has great summer storms.! I need new glasses but it looks like the ocotillo are blooming, too. Also beautiful. I've always had a soft spot for ocotillo. While it has sharp spines, you can touch them carefully without getting a half dozen branches coming off and stabbing the F out of you unlike cholla. cactus. I always felt they were one of the few nice plants in the desert.
Steven, I appreciated your comment, and you're right, It's Molino Basin. I remember Hitchcock Point; I don't know if it's still there. It's been a while since I've been up there. A few months ago, I began compiling worthwhile videos about Arizona into a playlist at my RU-vid page, including the plants, wildlife, drives and scenery, and the monsoon. Maybe you'll like it. It also features snow in the Old Pueblo, and numerous videos on Mt. Lemmon. I'm still adding more Arizona videos, there's more to include. There's a bunch there on Tucson, not the city itself, but the nature that surrounds it. When's the last time you visited? Do you remember Williams Addition, a lovely big patch of natural desert between Rosemont and Craycroft, along Broadway, south to 18th St.? There were nice brick homes in there on 5 acre parcels, dirt roads, VERY natural. Piece by piece, it was bought up by big business, and turned into a large business complex. It was high dollar property being in the center of town as it was. It's hard anymore to find any patches of desert in the city. You pretty much have to go to outlying areas to access the desert. A whole lot has changed.
Saint Steven, I, too, attended PVHS in the mid 60's. Back then, Tucson was growing faster than they could build schools. As a result Palo Verde was on split session. Depending on which side of a street boundary you lived, you either were on the morning session from 6:05 a.m. to 12:05 p.m., or the afternoon session from 12:20 p.m. to 6:20 p.m. Each year you switched sessions. I absolutely HATED IT!! It was a terrible way to go to high school especially if you lived outside the city limits as I did. We lived out Tanque Verde Road. Were you affected by this overcrowding?
I were worked Takamatsu Restaurant at 5532 E Speedway Blvd. Tucson AZ. There is the korean foods and teppan yakee and sushi and good friends also. Mr. Koga how are you? Stay health!
Great video! I lived in the "Old Pueblo" back in the 1960's and loved it! Now that I'm retired, I would really like to move back. But I've become aware of Valley Fever and it does seem to be a realistic concern, especially for someone like me in my 60s who suffers from respiratory problems. It's really the only thing that keeps me away. Am I overreacting?
Beautiful, and even more prettier when there is snow on the mountain, this is where the Tucsonans go for snow. It can be dangerous to drive up there though, if you are not accustomed to not just driving in the snow but driving up a slippery Mountain in the snow and ice, and while it's curvy. That road is TOTALLY different then, not to mention some people that don't know how to drive in it, that do it anyway. It ain't no walk in the park or shall I say,.. walk in the desert. Always take water with you even in the cold and a charged up battery on a working cell phone, and be SURE your car is gassed up, there are no gas stations on the road up the mountain or on the top of the mountain. Do your research before hand, evwn for a quick trip, as some visitors have died of weather related issues. Beware of the natural wild animals such as bears and mountain lions, and smaller ones such as foxes, bobcats, snakes, tarantulas, bats, etc. Birds, like bald eagles, and cardinals are beautiful to come across!!! Thanks for the video, Tim!
John Ledger, Yep that's the beauty of our Old Pueblo but Mount Lemmon isn't really consider the Old Pueblo cuz it's in the mountains but you could go from 80 degrees, hot enough to go swimming, and then drive up to the mountain and play in the snow all on the same day! Just lovely!
Better do it in the fall in the month of November when the weather is at its best, no hot scorching desert heat to put up with minus the summer monsoons and just before the start of the ignored winter monsoons where the weather forecasters who are paid professional liars act like it doesn’t exist and at the same time acts like there is no winter monsoon.
If the desert, Spring is the most beautiful time, when everything is blooming, March into April. If heading into northern AZ, then maybe you could catch the Autumn colors, that you wouldn't see in southern Arizona.
Hey Tim! I heard that you are going to Japan (Tokyo) and East Asia this September is that true? why do we not see it on your website tim? did you Cancel it or Something Ha Tim!
43:41 WHAT?? A great video til then, and you didn't go to the top? Just 15 minutes or so further, and what grand beauty the viewers would have seen!, and yet you didn't finish the journey!! So disappointing! Agh! Terrible. The video missed out on the ferns, streams, tall pines, the tops of the peaks! Considering this was late April, there would have also been wildflowers! A good video, but unfinished.