The Back Approach to Mount Lemmon trip

One of the reasons we bought the Toyota 4Runner was to use it on 4x4 roads so we bought the only guidebook we could find. In the book there is an "EASY" 4x4 trip up the backside of Mount Lemmon.

We talked our friends and neighbors, Don and Penny, into joining us for the day, packed a picnic lunch and took off.

To get to the 4x4 route we drove to the town of Oracle which is about 40 miles from our home.

We passed the BIG molar along the way (separate blog entry).

The first part of the dirt road was actually quite nice. It is obvious that it is graded frequently.

However when we got to the 7 mile Mount Lemmon sign the road changed dramatically along with a sign stating that the road is closed from December 15 through March 1st. We had no idea that it was closed for part of the year and were very happy that we had arrived in time and didn't have to turn back.

From then on the road became much rougher with larger ruts and larger rocks to navigate over. It narrowed to one lane which made passing oncoming vehicles more challenging.

However, the 4Runner performed beautifully! Michael said he never felt any loss of control and loved it.

We stopped at a small plateau along the way and had lunch in the SUV as it was in the low 30s outside and the wind was blowing.

Weather during the trip ranged from sun and blue skies, to small amounts of rain, to sleet and eventually a couple inches of snow. We managed to test the 4Runner out in all kinds of weather and road conditions. The back road had very little traffic and the snow stuck easily - never slid a bit. Then we got to the paved road we tested swerving back and forth and slammed on the brakes. We were all very pleased and surprised at the amount of control the 4Runner had even when testing it.

Drove up to Summerhaven and visited the General Store where a young boy in shorts but gloves, boots, jackets and pretty warm cap was shoveling snow outside the store asking the gods to have the snow stop so he could stop. He posed for me.

As we drove down Catalina Highway back toward home we found out that the road was actually closed up to the summit unless you had chains or 4 wheel drive. This time we would have been OK but had we driven up from that side to drive down the backside and the road had been closed to vehicles with out chains we would have been sadly disappointed.

We didn't expect to experience a Winter Wonderland yesterday but it was beautiful.

The view from the backside road and the paved road were many and gorgeous.

We had a great time yesterday!

After we got back to Tucson we were passing Zona78, a local restaurant, when Penny said she loved their happy hour. We turned around and had a Happy Hour dinner.