Another one of my challenges was checked off the list yesterday–a drive to the top of Mt Lemmon in the heart of Tucson. At 9,157 feet high, it is the tallest mountain surrounding Tucson. It also offers a totally different climate experience compared to Tucson. Tuscon gets 15″ or less of precipitation annually; Mt. Lemmon gets 180″ of snow.

I began the ascent of the mountain in the Sonoran Desert habitat and as I climbed out of the foothills of Tucson, I passed habitats ranging from desert to aspen forest, an experience one duplicates by traveling from the US/Mexico border to the US/Canada border. And I did it driving on the Catalina Highway, ascending over 7ooo’ while driving about an hour.

The drive begins in the desert, then climbs into an area that has pinon and juniper trees, eventually reaching fir trees, and finally, at the top, there is an aspen forest. The road is now designated as the Sky Island Parkway, part of the US Scenic Highway system and is in the National Coronado Forest.

There are dozens of trails that criss-cross the mountain, many picnic areas, several campgrounds, even a lake for the fisherman in the group. If you are there when there is a good snow base, there is skiing at Ski Valley.

Mt Lemmon is one of the Sky Islands, regions of isolated, forested mountains surrounded by seas of grassland found mostly in southern Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Sonora, Mexico. These series of mountains, 40 in total, are unparalleled for their biological diversity, as they combine four different geographic zones in each sky mountain area.

The Sonoran Desert’s most eastern range ends in these mountains; the Chihuahuan Deserts most western range does likewise. The Rocky Mountain geological zone extends this far to the south; The Sierra Madran zone extends this far to the North. Four geographic zones intersect in the land of sky mountains.

I left the  city of Tucson and it was 84˚ and sunny. An hour later, I reached the town of Summerhaven near the summit of Mt Lemmon and it was 52˚F and cloudy. After driving another hour,  descending the mountain, it was 86˚ F and mostly sunny.

Oh, there were warning signs for bear crossings, but I didn’t see any bear. There were lots of humans hiking the trails, a few deer watching from the forest, some folks I spoke to as we photographed the scenery from a pullout swore they saw a bobcat or an ocelot, but their eyes must have been younger than mine for I saw nothing.

It was a lovely drive, I successfully fulfilled my mountain drive challenge, and I discovered another sky island–this one in the middle of a city.

I love sky islands — I have hiked several including Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona, Patagonia in southern Arizona,  and Madera Canyon south of Tucson.

They are magical places, a chance to see many habitats, and the plants and creatures that live in those habitats, in a day’s vertical drive. Places worth protecting.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is living in Tucson for two months, exhibiting her photography in art shows, taking photographs, and blogging about photography, art fairs, and living life “solo.”  And I discovered that I love sky islands.