A nice 50 miles

Written by Michael McKisson

Sunday, 30 August 2009 03:45

Just about every other week, I take a trip up Mt. Lemmon on my bike. I start from out house and ride a little way up.

Mt. Lemmon is considered one of the top 100 climbs in the United States. It averages about 6% grade the whole way up.

Mt. Lemmon creates a dilemma for me. I hate driving my car somewhere to ride my bike, so when it comes to Mt. Lemmon, I have to ride the 20 miles to the base of the climb and then the 20 miles home. Obviously, the makes it more challenging to climb up Lemmon.

Today I had the goal of making it to the Gordon Hirabayashi recreation area. Mr. Hirabayashi was a prisoner at the interment camp. Prisoners actually built the original Catalina Highway. The area was almost exactly 8 miles up the mountain.

I've been here before with our friends, Dan and Nicole. Nicole used to work for the Forest Service here in Tucson and actually did most of the research about the camp and wrote the copy for the posters you see in the photos.

And lastly, here I am standing on part of the prison that is left. It is an interesting place, you should go if you can. And be sure to read all the information posters!