469.     "Sun Writing Glimpse"
An easy trip to a cool Arizona "sky island" with an amazing view - like going from Mexico to Canada in an hour or two!

RETIRED

If you happen to be getting really hot in the Valley of the Sun, as we tend to do on our trips to Arizona, here's a really cool thing to do: just go get a glimpse of some "sun writing"! Actually, that's supposed to be a sort of "play on words" based on the Greek root words for "sun" and "writing" with the addition of a homonym for a synonym of the English word "glimpse", but once you figure out where to go - and, like so many of our other boxes, it's a bit of a mystery - we hope that you will be as delighted as we were in getting there ourselves!

Now, this is not a journey for the faint of heart, as you will be taking a "swift trail" towards one of the highest sky islands in southern Arizona, and an historic one at that. The mountain gets its name from the mirrors supposedly used in the 1880's to reflect the sun's rays to signal the whereabouts of Apache warriors. There is also an historic fire tower and ranger cabin from the 1930's at this slightly over 10, 000 foot summit.

Generally healthy individuals should have no fear of the elevation, however, since you can actually drive up to the 9000-foot elevation mark from about mid-April to November. If you are coming from near sea level (as we were, coming from RI), you might consider staying overnight to acclimate at a campground with an Irish name, bearing in mind that temperatures may get down below freezing at night, as they did for us even in late April/early May. There were also quite a few snow banks left both along the old fire road to the summit and along the lovely Arcadia Trail that can be used to form a loop with the gated fire road. Either way you get to the top, stand at the bottom step of the firetower and then carefully take about 30 steps northeast to a rocky promontory with fabulous views. At your feet, you should spy a foot-long rock with a blue dot in the center and a blue circle around it. Just a couple of feet to the right of it, a boulder that is reddish and whitish on its north side has an overhang on its south side with a 6-inch somewhat triangular-shaped stone that harbors behind it a micro box containing a stamp that is supposed to depict "Mr. Sunshine peeking out from behind a graph-shaped mountain"! Hope that you enjoy this scintillating simulated journey from Mexico to Canada in just a few miles!

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