Tortolitas and Catalinas—M.O.V.E. 2024

Today, Misty and I participated in the 12th annual M.O.V.E. in Two Ranges hiking event, where participants hiked in the Tortolitas near the town of Marana, then hopped in a car and drove 25 minutes to Catalina State Park in Oro Valley to hike another stretch. As best I can determine, MOVE stands for Marana Oro Valley Event. There were four challenges in the event, with their alliterative names as such: Mighty (8 miles); Major (10 miles); Mega (16 miles); and Massive (20 miles). Of course, we did the massive event, consisting of 13 miles in the Tortolitas and 7 miles in the Catalinas. Quite a challenging event, mostly because of the heat after 11:00 am or so, with temps reaching 81º.

Misty kept her hiking app on a single recording just to
see how AllTrails would deal with it. This is how it
split the maps up.

My recording inadvertently stopped about ¾ of a mile from the finish in the Tortolitas, so I ended up a little shy of 13 miles.

Hit the trail a little after six. We both left our headlamps at home (duh), but managed to follow a couple of hiker who had theirs. Luckily, the Tortolitas hike starts out in a sandy wash. We were able to finally see without lights about 6:30.

A rare crested Saguaro.

The Catalina State Park leg started out on a bridle path.

View from the Sutherland Trail.

After party with Dragoon beer and food. Quite a nice little fundraising event for the Oro Valley and Marana parks and rec.