Catalina Park has it all

Recreation options you'll find at various sites around Arizona: hiking, horseback riding, mountain biking, bird-watching, camping, picnicking and exploring ancient ruins. • Recreation options you'll find at Catalina State Park: all of the above. • You get the point. • The park - nestled in t…

These trails easy as pie to access

Broadway in midtown Tucson is all about bright lights and big city - but you will find something very different near the street's eastern dead end: tranquil trails. • A maze of more than a dozen interconnected paths begins at a trailhead off Broadway just west of Camino del Codorniz. • Hiker…

To hike off feast, relish bountiful trails here

It can be your penance for a Thanksgiving pigout. It can be a clever way to get holiday visitors out of the house for a few hours. It can be a wondrous on-foot entree into the beauty of this place where we live. There's so much to like about taking a hike.

Mint Spring hike has a flavor that's all its own

Jasmine the pack donkey paused along the Mint Spring Trail to munch sweet summer grass and snatch a brief break in the bargain.

Way up high, green(ery) is breaking out

Spring sunshine has seared the last snow from the heights of the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson - ushering in the season of green. It's a perfect time for a trek in lush woodlands a vertical mile above the city.

The Sycamore Trail is just right

Midspring is a perfect time for those betwixt and between hikes - in terrain that's somewhere above the sweat-sucking desert and below the chilly mountain heights.

Tortolita trails lead to scenic wonders

Trek into the Tortolitas northwest of Tucson - far beyond the fairways and featherless birdies - and you'll discover a trove of scenic wonders in the rough. An extensive network of trails will take you into the heart of the range.

Catalinas' snow trails make fine winter hike

Tucson hikers get a megadose of saguaros and a surfeit of sunshine - so it can be an exotic thrill to rise above the desert and trek in a cloud-veiled forest cloaked in snow. No need to travel far in a quest for flakes.

Call 'em the Catalinas' Cactus Canyons

Slicing sharply into the steep Front Range of the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, they bristle in their lower elevations with the spiny beauty of saguaro cacti set against a backdrop of sheer rock walls.

A grand, uplifting trek, and plain up

Short. Steep. Stupendous. That's a nutshell sum-up of the Blackett's Ridge Trail in Sabino Canyon northeast of Tucson.

Takin' it to the trails: Answer the call of fall

Summer: It's over. Extreme heat: outta here. Hiking conditions: just about perfect. Autumn in the Tucson area can be near nirvana for trail trekkers - with almost all of our desert, canyon and mountain terrain free from climatic extremes.

Trail's world away from desert heat

Think of it as Summer Sabino. Upper Sabino Canyon, high in the Catalina Mountains, is a cool, forested, wildflowered world away from the popular desert reaches of the canyon northeast of Tucson.

Cool hikes near Tucson

Avid hikers - desperate to escape the hot heart of the desert summer - often flee Tucson on pricey, time-consuming trekking trips to cool Colorado or evergreen Oregon.

Primer delivers the woods on safe, smart camp skills

Our prehistoric ancestors did it every single night. No, not that. We're talking about camping - bedding down on the ground, under the stars or in a cave. Maybe it's a genetic memory of those ancient days before the coddling comforts of civilization, or perhaps it's just a need to reconnect …

A place to claim a steak

The name of the place is a play on words. The atmosphere plays to the senses. The menu plays up the many pleasures of a protein-packed food: beef. But stop in for lunch or dinner at this downtown restaurant - A Steak in the Neighborhood - and you'll find that the kitchen staff is all about f…

Nimbus Bistro: brew pub & more

Go to Nimbus Bistro and Brewery with a hankering for a big burger and hopped-up beer - and you're bound to get your happy fill of both. Nimbus, which opened last September at 6464 E. Tanque Verde Road, is a brew pub at heart. But give the place a closer look and you'll find more than suds an…

Incredible Italiano dining

Brothers Vincenzo, Franco and Giuseppe Ali prepare food at their Michelangelo Ristorante Italiano as if the very reputation of their family is at stake - and it shows in nearly every bite. • Specialities at the restaurant are picture perfect on the plate and pure, authentic Italy on the pala…

Forget the name: Fuku food is superb

Good eats

Attn: Geniuses at work

We will tell you, in due course, about dinner at Amici Ristorante Italiano. But first, we must take you directly to lunch — and wax rhapsodic about a frittata.

Tasty Beer Chips

Brett Smith is an inventor.

Hiking: An ideal day, from Sabino to Madera

Up at 4:30 a.m. Coffee. Black. Big mug. Pull on ratty canvas shorts, polypropylene top, light boots. Stuff the right stuff into favorite old rucksack.

Hiking: Extreme adventures

You could take a hike in an average canyon — or trek across the incomparable Grand Canyon from rim to rim.

Phoenix: Embracing the heat

Our name is Caliente. It means hot. Hot doesn't scare us. We embrace hot. That's why we went to Phoenix — the very heart of hot — in a week of record-breaking temperatures. We climbed blistering Camelback Mountain with sunburned Phoenicians, dropped by Tempe Town Lake for some midday fishing…

Sycamore Reservoir Trail: Reservoir trail has liquidity

Here's what many desert dwellers like about the Sycamore Reservoir Trail: its liquid assets.The 1.8-mile trek to the reservoir site leads to a small dam, where spring runoff from the heights of the Catalina Mountains plunges fetchingly into a shallow pool. The reservoir itself ranges from no…

Picacho Peak: Peak has climb it control (with satellite tour)

PICACHO PEAK — This blade of stone, stabbing at the sky along Interstate 10 between Tucson and Phoenix, all but cries out to passing motorists:

The Arizona Trail: An 800-mile walk

Someday you might wake up and say to yourself: I feel like walking across the entire state of Arizona!

Hiking: Always in season

Call it seasonal synchronicity. It's the pleasing practice of choosing outdoor destinations to fit particular seasons. You know the drill: Head for a pine-shaded trail high in the mountains for a summer hike. Find a balmy expanse of desert for a winter spin on the bike. Migrate with the cale…