MOUNT LEMMON

When a detachment of soldiers uniformed in Civil War blue set up a summer camp on Mt. Lemmon in the late 1880s they started a chain of events that today is culminating in an exciting playground prospect for the postwar G.I.'s of the Twentieth Century.

Mt. Lemmon is in the Santa Catalinas, and the center of its wonderland is only sixteen air miles from the City of Tucson, a fact both Arizonians and their visitors are savoring with a pleasant anticipation. For twelve long years people around Tucson have been watching the snail-like progress of a road - a broad, paved highway - as it crawled up the mountain side. Not yet entirely open for travel, it is nevertheless nearing completion, and this is a preview of what the streams of travelers will see.

Leaving Tucson at the start of a fifty-minute drive, the country is brushed with all of the color that is the desert's. Over a long stretch of the flat desert floor, cacti of countless variety give an interesting foreground to views that are in every direction spectacular. North (to the left) is the lofty range of mountains topped by Mt. Lemmon. Ahead and a little to the right is a softer, more rolling range, the Santa Ritas. Scarcely any direction is without its range of mountains in the background.

It is an intriguing fact that from the Tucson region - generally supposed to be, and called, desert - can be seen sixteen ranges of mountains. And each range has its own personality. The Catalinas are profound and dominating. The Santa Ritas gentle and inviting; the Rincons mysterious and always faraway; the Tucsons harsh and unbound. And so on and on, every range has a fascination and a different story of its own.

The Catalinas with their weighty contour scarred by deep gullies and canyons and their varicolored hues of pastel shades have enhanced and graced the canvasses [sic] of many well-known artists.

Continuing our pre-view tour along the new highway, we soon leave the scenic desert country and are into the foothills which form the edge of an immense cactus forest. This, incidentally, is the boundary of the Coronado National Forest area wherein lies Mt. Lemmon. The road winds through an abundance of the gigantic saguaro and this part, while neither boring nor tiresome, is more familiar, being much like the country for miles around Tucson. The saguaro and the hills are soon behind, however, and the highway begins its ascent into the mountains proper. It is a gentle climb and has none of the hair-pin curves and terrifying sheer drops of many other mountain-

ous roads. Its route has been carefully surveyed with an eye more to the comfort of its traffic than to the saving of feet. All the grading and banking tricks of modern highway engineer-ing have been employed and the car almost seems to drive itself, following as planned the contour of the road. As the desert begins to drop away, pictorial scenes of unparalleled beauty are framed by the edge of the mountain and the shoulder of the highway. At about four thousand feet the curtain is drawn on these because the road is well into the mountains, but more and even grander views soon will be seen farther on as the route goes higher and more of the valleys are visible below. In a little while the buildings and homes of the Federal Bureau of Prisons are in sight. Built of rock natural to the mountain, they are impressive and comfortable.

Here, for those whose business makes it necessary for them to traverse the unfinished portion of the road, permission must be obtained.

From this camp on up you are into the mountains proper and the brush begins to give way to scrub oak and cedar, and the bottoms of the gorges are filled with small fir and pine. For a mile or two this kind of scenery is prevalent and then the road is widened, and here a trail leads off to the General Hitchcock Pine. Although it is possible to drive part of the way, most of the half-mile to the pine must be made afoot; but it is well worth the effort, and the exercise in the invigorating air is not at all unwelcome. The trail leads up a colorful little wash replete with boulders, a stream in winter, moss, fern and flowers and towering pines. The General Hitchcock itself is a huge Ponderosa pine almost four hundred years old.

From here on you are definitely in the big timber, some of it measuring twenty feet or more in circumference - miles upon miles of solid stands of virgin forest, uncut because it has always been inaccessible.

miles from the charming little mountain settlement of Summerhaven - is another stopping place and one with a view that almost rivals that at Windy Point. Here the country seen through the gap from the road is wild and untamed and for hundreds of square miles is without fence, road or human being. Across the broad San Pedro Valley in the far distance is the long, wooded extent of the sparsely populated Galiuro range. The highway here is blocked with a gate, and beyond the gate unauthorized traffic is not permitted, this portion of the road being still under construction. From the gate it is five miles to Soldiers Camp. At Soldiers Camp, site of the original camping ground made by soldiers from Fort Lowell now ruins on the outskirts of Tucson is the center of the Forest Service activities in the For the next few miles, geologic action is the center of attraction. Centuries of erosion have been at work on the ponderous rock formations and they are as striking as any to be found in the famed Wonderland of Rocks. Many of them have been named and are well identified with signs to point them out. Among many others, they bear such names as Punch and Judy, the Stogie Smoker, the Lizard, Toothless Old Man and the Window.

At the outside of a wide, sweeping curve is a parking area. This is Windy Point. From here can be seen what is probably one of the most interesting views in this part of the country. Visibility is excellent, with little ground haze, and Tucson, now about twenty-five miles away, seems much nearer, but is only in the foreground of the vast eyeful of country stretched out in front. At this altitude, about six thousand feet, the air has taken on a very definite snap and, if the trip is made in the summer, the difference between the climate below and here is quite refreshing. Huge boulders are at the edge of the road and from them sprout queer-shaped pine trees.

At the end of the completed portion of the road only five Coronado National Forest. The Forest Service has arranged for accommodations for campers by building fire places and camp sites with running water and shelters. In this area many people have leased land from the Forest Service and have built cozy and comfortable little log and frame cabins. Here the forest rangers have cleared away the underbrush and made an artificial lake.

Following the ridge between Soldiers Camp and Summer-haven, wildlife is abundant, particularly deer, wild turkey and squirrel. The ridge is heavily timbered and at night the lights of Tucson are easily visible and entrancing. Summerhaven, itself, is a collection of lodges and summer cabins established around a small general store. Following the existing long, circuitous road by way of Oracle, a few enterprising citizens of Tucson have made summer homes there for the past twenty-five years, and some of the cabins are luxurious. By next year the new road will have been completed, offer-ing easy access to a veritable summer paradise to residents and visitors in Southern Arizona. Ан