Tucson delivers more than sunshine for winter travel

When we booked a two-week stay in Tucson, our first goal was to trade mid-January cold for sun and warmth.

My husband and I thought the 14-day stay away from Spokane would be enough to explore this Southwest gem. Truth is, I wish we had more time.

Tucson regularly rates at the top of national lists for outdoor adventures, with year-round hiking, biking and walking trails around the colorful Sonoran Desert. It also boasts historic sites, activities and foodie destinations.

I grew up in Las Vegas, but I never expected the beauty Tucson delivers, from the saguaro “forests” to the nearby Santa Catalina Mountains. By our first day, our friends’ tips for must-do priorities rolled in faster than the vistas filling our rental car’s windshield.

“Drive through Saguaro National Park; the west section is in Tucson,” said a former Spokane resident, now living near Tucson. “For the east section, I’d stay east toward Vail.”

Wait, what? There are two sections of the national park?

Now, we know: Saguaro West – Tucson Mountain District; and Saguaro East – Rincon Mountain District.

Although driving distance between west and east districts is 33 miles, we found both sides to be worthy stops. For the east portion, we drove the 8-mile Cactus Forest Loop Drive, which takes about an hour, to watch a sunset. Luckily for us, locals told us about a favorite comfort-food eatery just a hop away, Saguaro Corners, established in 1956.

On either side, you can find more to do than just one day’s worth of action – whether it’s a hike, a loop in the car, a visitor’s center stop or photography among cacti that are seemingly on steroids.

The Old West

“You should go to Tombstone one morning, have lunch there; we go to Big Nose Kate’s Saloon,” said another text. “Then go over to the Kartchner Caverns (State Park).”

Discovered in 1974 and opened to the public in 1999, Kartchner park protects a living cave system with massive, still-growing formations. It was tight, but we did manage that Tombstone-Kartchner loop in one day.

After an hour and a half’s drive from Tucson, we reached Tombstone by 9:30 a.m. as a few of the shops were opening.

Costumed gunslingers were already roaming the main drag – a dirt road, appropriately. What we didn’t know is that these characters at various spots hawked about four different shootout re-enactments – one at the Oriental Saloon, a trolley tour, and I lost track of the other two.

Now what?

Based on a business leader’s input, we opted for the $10 “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” inside the O.K. Corral Historic Complex and near the original 1881 shootout site that included Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. We roamed displays about the town’s history afterward.

Turns out that Big Nose Kate was Holliday’s girlfriend, and after the show, the namesake saloon proved still to be hopping with good food, costumed waitresses and live music. And for tips, one cowboy helped patrons dress in gun-slinging attire for personal cell phone photos.

Leaving Tombstone and driving another half-hour, we had followed Kartchner’s online advice to book a day ahead for the 3 p.m. Rotunda-Throne Room tour. To preserve the formations, you can’t take in anything – including cellphones – so 25-cent lockers are available. We arrived early to watch a movie about the cavern’s discovery.

With time limited, we skipped the Big Room Tour, available Oct. 15-April 15 around when bats return. But the Throne Room proved as regal as the name implies, with formations composed of layers of calcite called travertine deposited by slow drips of water. Near the end, you see that tour’s massive column called Kubla Khan, 58 feet tall.

On yet another day, we trekked south to Tubac, a small town with artsy shops, galleries and the Tubac Presidio State Historic Park. The site preserves the ruins of the oldest Spanish fort in Arizona, established in 1752. It’s also a starting point to hike part of what remains of the Anza Expedition Trail, which we’ll save for next time.

A short jaunt just down the road from there took us to the Tumacácori mission, with ruins of an 1800s church and community preserved as a national park.

Packing in Tucson Itself

For my history-buff husband, we had a mandatory stop at Tucson’s Pima Air & Space Museum, packed full of aircraft relics. Most guides say to plan three hours there. We needed five and didn’t see it all. A chunk of that was inside the 390th Memorial Museum, which includes a B-17 on display among other exhibits.

Many other displays are outside, spread across the museum’s 80 acres, so we booked a narrated shuttle to see historic military aircraft, unusual civilian planes, NASA aircraft and a former Air Force One used by John F. Kennedy. We also walked around other planes stored inside, including the once-secretive SR-71 plane on display.

On a cooler Tucson day, still in the 60s, we strolled the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum’s grounds that explain the region’s animals, insects, geology and vegetation. It had an ocelot, bobcat, gray foxes, birds and snakes – the latter thankfully behind glass – among the many exhibits.

For part of our last day, we slipped in a quick visit to the nearby San Xavier del Bac Mission, built in 1797. Part of its ornate exterior is undergoing a restoration. Its intricate interior remains intact. Mass is held there regularly.

There were so many hiking choices, but we narrowed in on the scenic Sabino Canyon Recreation Area with its steady-flowing creek. To take more in, we booked the privately-run “Sabino Canyon Crawler,” an electric shuttle at $30 for two.

The one-hour round -trip shuttle goes up near the canyon’s top and returns, with an option to listen to a narration, but riders can hop off any time to walk the gentle paved drive. We did that on the way back for a short stroll, catching both birds and butterflies.

But our Sabino trip highlight was then a real hike on the nearby Seven Falls Trail. The 8.5-mile trek has stream crossings and slight elevation gain in rugged terrain to view the falls, but of course, it’s worth it. We took a second ride on the Bear Canyon Shuttle, $8 a person, from the Sabino Canyon Visitor Center to shave off about 4 miles of the hike, also worth it.

A couple of recovery days later, we found an easy hike in Catalina State Park, on its Canyon Loop that’s part of the site’s 5,500 acres of foothills, canyons and riverbeds. With recent rains, water also flowed abundantly there.

The saguaros can be seen in Catalina State Park, also, along with plenty of barrel cacti, the cholla, palo verde trees, desert flowers, creosote bushes and mesquite trees.

I gained a new respect for that saguaro, sacred to the Tohono O’odham Nation. Each carries a different appearance, growing typically up to 40 to 60 feet tall and with an average life span of 150 to 200 years. Its famous arms don’t emerge until near the ripe old age of 50 or so.

These cacti only grow in the Sonoran Desert, a ranger told us, with the region’s “sweet spot” of rainfall two times a year, in the winter and also during the summer’s monsoon season.

We were told those thunderstorms with clouds over the mountains are a sight to see – another time. Plus, there were highlights we didn’t have time for after some relaxation and searching out street tacos and churros. We found top-notch breweries too, among them: Barrio Brewing, Button Brew House and Tombstone Brewing.

Tucson came through in the weather department, with low 70s for highs and sunshine throughout our January stint. We’re already making plans for another winter return to Tucson to find more than the sun.