Mt. Lemmon, near Tucson

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Mt. Lemmon, near Tucson

Postby noseoil » Wed Jan 20, 2016 8:00 am

Keith & I went to Mt Lemmon this past weekend for a winter camping trip with my wife (Alice) & his grandson (Jaden). He arrived early at the spot on Friday morning, found what we needed for two spaces close together & did some setup. It rained a bit on Friday evening & was cold & wet. After breakfast on Saturday, we took a drive to the next area up the hill, about a mile away, the Prison Camp campground. It was named for a 30's & 40's "honor" prison camp. We were just going for a morning hike. As we rounded a bend in the road, we saw a teardrop camper, then another, then the whole group. We had stumbled onto a gathering of Mini Cooper's by mistake. It was a very nice mistake!

If anyone "needs" go camping in southern Arizona in the winter Mt. Lemmon is a great place, just north of Tucson. We were thinking about Quartzsite for the weekend (the big RV gathering), just to get out of town, but decided the mountain a little closer to home would be better this time.

Keith & Barney (one of the mini owners) in camp on Saturday morning.

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Here's a view of the general area, it's at about 5,000' elevation up the Catalina highway. There are two areas near mile post 6 to choose from, Molino Basin below, & one a mile further up the road. The better spot for a gathering is at the Prison Camp area. It's flat & more open. With good timing, I guess it would be possible to have upwards of 20 teardrops in a few areas close together.

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We met the herd of Mini's, who just happened to choose this weekend to do a small gathering & crashed their party, set up next to them in another spot. Nice folks & great camping & fun with them. There are areas where several teardrops can use the same spot to camp. It's really nice to be able to share a bigger camp site with a common fire pit.

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It's dry camping, but there are toilets & good hiking trails all around the area. We stayed at the Prison Camp area just above Molino Basin on the second night.

Caren just got a new teardrop to tow behind the black Mini. It was her first trip out with it from Phoenix.

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A good time was had by all, even the pack rat that ate our tortillas! Had to work around the bite marks to make chorizo burritos for breakfast. Here's the first site at Molino Basin.

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Add this one to your list for winter & please let us know if you're going so we can join the fun.
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