Several years ago, my wife and I moved from the Tucson Mountain Park area to midtown so we could use our car less and our bikes more.
In our old house, the nearest grocery store was 6 miles and several large hills away. Now we’ve got a Trader Joe’s down the street.
We’ve been thrilled with our decision to move to midtown, but I must admit now that I have been riding mountain bikes, I miss our old place that had a trail from our backyard into Tucson Mountain Park.
It’s not enough to want to move back into our old house, but it would be pretty convenient now.
I lamented to a friend about the lack of trails near our new house. He told me there was an urban trail fairly close. After a post on TucsonMTB.com I got a tip about the Urban Assault Trail.
Apparently many people ride a loop though the Via Entrada neighborhood across Skyline Drive and down the actual trail, which cuts between neighborhoods near Alvernon Road. Check the map of the loop here.
The access to the trail is at the first wash on Alvernon Road north of River Road.
Check out the video of the the trail heading from Skyline Drive to River Road.
That trail is officially called Finger Rock Wash Trail (#41) in the Pima County Trails Master Plan. It’s listed as a single track hiking and equestrian trail, there’s no mention of cycling. Ninety five percent of it is on private property. It crosses maybe 60 different pieces of private land, most are just various people’s back yard. The Pima County Trail Master Plan says you are supposed to ask permission of the property owner before you go on their land. I don’t know how anyone could get permission from all those property owners. It would cost you a bunch of money in envelopes and postage, including the SASEs. I imagine most people wouldn’t reply, some would say no and some would say yes. In the end, it’s unworkable. I assume a person going down the trail could be charged w/ 60 counts of trespassing by the time they got to the end of it. I don’t know why the county would bother calling these things “trails” in the first place. I guess you just get out there and hope nobody gives you any grief, and if they do you act polite and get off their land ASAP.
I heard about foothills wash trails, but never knew exactly where they were. Thanks for posting the map, I’ll check it out soon!