Hiking Without a Cairn in the World: Sutherland-Romero Canyon Loop

Saturday's hike was simultaneously one of the stupidest and one of the most thrilling and scary escapades I've ever ever willingly endured. What started out as a sunny, perhaps ten-hour 20-mile hike, turned into a nearly sixteen-hour nightmare, a 24-mile slog, much of it through one to two feet of heavy, wet snow. We were lucky to make it off the mountain. 

At one point, it took us nearly three hours to hike one mile, through crotch-deep snow up a 35-degree slope, and over 1,000 meters of elevation gain. At that point, we were seriously considering sending out an S.O.S to search and rescue. The lack of cell service kept us plodding along, with soaked feet, high anxieties, and rapidly approaching darkness. Then the rain began.

We joked on this and subsequent group selfies that this would be the 
last shot of us. Photo by Kathleen.

Obliviously unaware of what the day would unfold. Photo by Kathleen.

We'd had quite a bit of rain on New Years Eve, and some snow remained at about 4,500 feet, in the shady spots. We did't realize was this was a portent for the higher elevations—with one to two feet of snow above 6,500 feet.

Above 5,000 feet, and still fairly sunny, with temps in the high fifties, it was still t-shirt appropriate.

Photo by Kathleen.

Photo by Kathleen.

Kathleen, Michelle, and I still had a reason to smile. This would soon change. Photo by Jacques (Jack).

Jack and Kathleen enjoying the sun and views.

Nice views of Oro Valley. Photo by Jack.

The shady areas around 6,000 feet were beyond a mere dusting. Photo by Jack.

One casualty of the snow, especially in the heavier spots, was the covering up of the cairns that marked the trail in ambiguous areas. The snow was also quite wet and heavy causing many snow-laden branches to bend over, further obscuring our path.Some of these same branches also had tied to them blaze ribbons attached by previous hikers to mark the way. These, like the cairns, were thus  pretty much of no avail.

Our smiles reveal our obliviousness to the situation we were in. This would have been a great time to turn around, with plenty of daylight to make it back. Photo by Jack.

Photo by Jack.

An extant blaze ribbon. These, when they were still visible, really did keep us on track, but we did lose the trail several times. Storm clouds rolling in from the west foreboding the evening ahead.

The temperature started to drop pretty quickly as the clouds blocked most of the sun.

Penultimate group selfie. I think I'm attempting a photo-bombing hillbilly yokel grin. Photo by Kathleen.

0.8 miles to the Mt. Lemmon trail and decision time. Photo by Kathleen.

We debated hiking the Mount Lemmon trail, which we were now on, over to Mount Lemmon, 1.5 miles in the opposite direction to Romero Pass and our trail back. While substantially shorter than the 10 miles we had to go via Romero Canyon, it would have been another climb, up to 9,200 feet, on a trail we didn't know, in the dark. We also didn't know if anything on Mount Lemmon was open as the road up was closed only a couple days earlier. And we had no cell service to find out. So, we unanimously agreed to continue on to Romero Pass. We had also hiked this loop clockwise for a reason: we had never hiked the Sutherland and Mount Lemmon trails before and wanted to hammer them out in daylight; Jack and I had hiked the Romero Canyon Trail to Romero Pass, only a short three weeks prior, so we felt more comfortable hiking it in the dark, albeit with head lamps

My last photo for the hike as I focused instead on the final 9-mile leg, two-plus miles over to Romero Pass, and the Romero Canyon Trail back to Catalina State Park. Suffice to say, it was a trying six hours in the dark and incipient rain, and an ebullient rush of relief when we made the trail head, intact, around midnight.

Final group picture as we near the trailhead on the sand highway, and these smiles are legit. Photo by Kathleen.