Tortolita Traverse

The Antelope Canyon 55k is in exactly one week from today and it’s only three weeks until the Old Pueblo 50. After last weekend’s Old Pueblo preview run my focus was even more squarely aimed on the OP50 and getting in some more elevation & power hiking training. While I’m not at all looking past Antelope Canyon, I feel reasonably confident I can get through it if my knees hold up. The lack of training for these two races because of my knee issues is concerning, but I have to make do with what I have. One new route that I’ve wanted to accomplish which would provide me a medium distance run with more elevation than my usual routes is the “Tortolita Traverse.”

The Tortolita Traverse is a name I’ve assigned this run as it would start in the Dove Mountain community at the Wild Burro Trailhead near the Ritz Carlton and climb up over the top of the Tortolitas to finally end at our familiar training start point of Sun City in Oro Valley. While not too long at just over 15 miles, there is a pretty decent amount of climbing with about 1,550 feet of elevation gain, nearly all of which is in the first 6.5 miles. Once topping out the remainder of the run is pretty much all downhill. While Angela and I previously explored this traverse trail, having come from the Honeybee side down to the Wild Burro Trail, we hadn’t run it from point to point. There is a hiking event held in March that is called Move Across 2 Ranges which hikes both the Dove Mountain Trail system and the Catalina State Park system. After reading about that event I thought it would be fun to run between those two points, although the more immediate goal would be just crossing over the Tortolitas. Today seemed like the right time to try it, with Angela meeting our friend Julio in the late morning for a run at Honeybee already, so the logistics of getting a car to the end was taken care of.

I arrived at daybreak at the Wild Burro Trailhead but before even heading out I came across a Town of Marana employee who asked if I was going trail running. He was a very enjoyable guy who helped build a couple of the newer trails at Dove Mountain and himself is a fairly avid mountain biker. While the day was supposed to be hot, I couldn’t pass up the chance to chat with a fellow outdoor enthusiast so I spent about 15 minutes talking with him before finally heading out. Almost immediately upon starting I ran up on a javelina who thankfully moved off as I approached but I hoped this wouldn’t be an adventure filled with too animal encounters. With unseasonably warm temperatures the rattlesnakes are more active so I was careful to watch my foot placement all day. My planned route was to follow the Wild Burro Trail all the way to its end, then head up the unnamed road (I’m dubbing it the Tortolita Traverse Trail) which goes over the mountains, before descending up the old corral on the Honeybee Canyon Loop.

The initial 1.75 miles of the Wild Burro Trail is a fairly steady, moderately uphill climb that winds among the wash gaining about 200 feet. The going was fairly easy at first before coming to one of several pretty steep & rocky ascents. The path here has grades of up to about 25% and the steps are sometimes rather high as you climb the boulders up the hillside. Over the next 0.35 miles there is about 360 feet of elevation gain. I certainly will be incorporating much more climbing like this in my training in the near future, but at this point I’m not nearly as adept as I’d like to be in power hiking these sections. This is exactly the type of work I’ll need to conquer at Old Pueblo. Thankfully I wasn’t too concerned with pace today and I also made sure to stop and document my run by taking some pictures. I also knew what I was in for having run this section of the Wild Burro before on a TTR run just about a 4 weeks prior, although that one broke off the Wild Burro Trail and heading back to the trailhead via the Wild Mustang & Upper Javelina Trails.

After not even a half mile respite of fairly flat running, the second climb of the day approached. This one was shorter at only about 0.2 miles but still gained a pretty decent 160 feet in that short period of time. My calves and lungs were definitely feeling the grades. After this climbing section the trail dipped back towards the wash where I got to slog through over 1 mile of gently uphill sand that I told myself was great preparation for Antelope Canyon which should have nearly 20 miles of sandy conditions. The trail heads to the east side of the wash after this section and has a few more decent climbs before reaching the Alamo Springs & Lower Javelina junctions. I continued up the Wild Burro Trail, heading towards the next junction which would be the Wild Mustang branch, before passing that one by too. For the next 1.75 miles the trail meanders up and down and winds its way throughout the rocky landscape. I did stop and capture some nice photos while grabbing some water as well. I will note here that I only brought two 500ml soft flasks which was a poor call on my part as I should have known this journey would keep me out longer than the 15 miles would indicate and the record high temps for February would be reaching into the mid-80’s.

As I reached 5.62 miles on my Garmin I stood at 3,860 feet of elevation, having gained over 1.050 feet from the trailhead with some additional climbing thrown in to make up for some of the downhill sections. This was the point that Angela & I had previously come to when coming from the Honeybee side. There’s a water tank here with a dilapidated windmill and this is the end of the Wild Burro Trail, although the newly completed Ridgeline Trail does loop back towards the trailhead for those that want a return via a different route. That is another trail I want to explore another day. Today though I was about to head up the jeep road trail over the Tortolita Traverse Trail. This next section was the last hard climb of the day. It was all jeep road for about 0.75 miles as I gained close to another 300 feet of elevation, topping out at 4.150.

Finally at the peak of the run I knew the rest would be relatively easy, although I ended up walking some sections of the trail as my left knee in particular flared up with some pain. I’ve found that walking breaks does allow the pain to subside and I can run at least 1 mile segments at a time. I threw down a couple of 8:46 and 8:38 splits here for miles 8 & 9 as I enjoyed the gently sloping downhill single track. The remainder of the run grew tiresome dealing with my knees and my shortage of water, which I rationed reasonably well until finishing it off about 1.5 miles from the end of the run. I severely misjudged that aspect of this training run which I was bummed about. However, the day was a success overall.

I rolled into the Sun City parking lot exactly at the same time Angela drove in with the kids. That was perfect timing! I felt great for having accomplished my first Tortolita Traverse and I do plan to repeat this again in the near future. I’d like to add onto this run and head all the way down to Catalina State Park one day. Another variation I’d like to perform is yo-yo’ing back from Sun City to the Wild Burro Trailhead again which would cover some 30 miles with quite a descent amount of ascent. Those will be a couple of fun runs that I’ll explore soon with Angela. For now it’s time to shut down most of the hard training until Antelope Canyon next week!