#aspen loop

Aspen Loop One Year Out After The Big Horn Fire

SCVN Friday hikes on Mt. Lemmon have Begun with more excitement than usual, Last year’s hikes being a casualty of the Big Horn Fire and the pandemic. Marshall Gulch #3 Marshall Gulch Parking Area Leaving behind morning temperatures In the mid-eights, we gathered at Marshall Gulch To hike the Aspen Loop, combining the Aspen And Marshall Gulch trails for a 4.3-mile hike.   Marshall Gulch survived…

Butterflies On Host Plant

Tiny Checkerspot Butterflies (Aspen Loop, 07/08/13) — Image by kenne

Tiny checkerspots Showing love to the host plant Before moving on.

— kenne

Aspen Loop On Mt. Lemmon (08/02/13) — Image by kenne

These are amazing: each Joining a neighbor, as though speech Were a still performance. Arranging by chance To meet as far this morning From the world as agreeing With it, you and I Are suddenly what the trees try To tell us we are: That their merely being there Means something; that soon We may touch, love, explain. And glad not to have invented

As the month of October rolls around, the aspen trees of Coconino county put on a spectacular show of color. I head on up to the Arizona snowbowl to hike the Aspen loop and immerse myself in the annual beauty of changing leaves and crisp air.

The Aspen loop, I discover, is a short trail more for families to walk and enjoy the beauty without having to exert much energy. Not what I was looking…

Hiking with Old Buddies

The SCVN Friday Nature Hike was Aspen Trail, Marshall Gulch Trail loop, which would provide an opportunity to see the beautiful fall colors on Mt. Lemmon. The Aspen Trail has a grove of aspens, which I blogged in a previous posting. 

After hiking through the aspen grove, I began to get out in front of the nature hikers. With less fall color on the remaining part of the Aspen Trail I decided to…

Two of My Fellow SCVN Hiking Guides, Ricki and Tosh (August 2013) — Image by kenne

This Sunday we are experiencing some rain, the first since early August (already several inches of snow on Mt. Lemmon), so I’ve been going through some of my old photos and ran across one of two my favorite people.

This photo is on the Aspen Loop on Mt. Lemmon, this part of the trail, which was burned during the…

In 2003 the Aspen Fire destroyed many homes in Summerheaven and thousands of acres on Mt. Lemmon. Last Friday the Sabino Canyon Volunteer Naturalists led hike was on the Aspen Loop that goes through some of the areas destroyed, now recovered by new aspen and pine groves. 

A precursor to the Aspen Fire was the Bollock Fire, 2002 in the eastern part of the Catalinas. Parts of the area burned in 2002 is now experiencing the Burro Fire that started Friday and has now consumed 9,000 acres. The Burro Fire is one of a half-dozen wildfires in the Coronado National Forest. Did I say it is hot and very dry in southeastern Arizona?

— kenne

Slideshow images by kenne

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Having a snack at “lunch ledge” just off the Aspen Loop on Mount Lemmon as the clouds begin to build-up.

There wasn’t much time to relax before lightning and thunder began causing us to start moving quickly back to the train head. — Images by kenne

Be…