winding dirt road into Sycamore CanyonThe Guide to birding around Tucson writes of Sycamore Canyon: “Sycamore Canyon has been called the most interesting and also the most difficult birding area in Arizona.…It is rugged, remote and can be a route for smuggling people and illegal drugs…There is no trail, only the streambed; the route is strenuous.”

So of course I want to go. It’s my third day in Tucson and I had spent the day before in Catalina State Park, a place I hiked regularly when I lived in Tucson and a place that is far from remote or rugged. Families with children crawled their way up the wide sandy paths, and played by the stream that trickles through the valley. I had found lots of wonderful, new for me birds there: the Green-Tailed Towhee, the Pyrrhuloxia (known to locals as a Pyro), and an unidentifiable Hummingbird perched atop an ocotillo. I now wanted away from the crowds. Sycamore would be an adventure.