The trail that doesn't officially exist: The John Krein Trail in Tucson Mountain Park

We really like this campground. Quiet, close to good hiking, and recycling. (campgrounds are, in general, really bad about providing for recycling. kind of sad.)

And the prettiest 4-color hiking map we have ever seen.

Unfortunately, the map isn't as accurate as it should be.

Part of it can't be helped. In the desert, people can within a short period of time create trails. We have found this to be true on a number of occasions.

Yesterday we set out on a trail called the Starr Pass Trail. We left from the Sarasota Trailhead. We planned on connecting to the Yetman trail, and then to the Starr Pass trail back to our trailhead. We wanted a desert hike with little climbing, and from all of the descriptions, this is what we would find.












Everything went well. A lovely desert hike. We found, however, that the main trails were poorly marked, which was confusing because so many trails had been created by trail cutting.



Mother deer and her two kids.




This wasn't a huge problem until we came to a place where, according to my GPS we should turn South. So we did.

Where we found ourselves was hiking a very tall ridge on a clearly marked trail. However, it did not make sense in terms of our GPS, our compass, and our trail map.

Instead of being on the Starr Pass Trail, which we were trying to find, we were high above the park traveling along the upper ridge. It was a hike for relatively experienced hikers, necessitating trekking poles and careful ascents and descents. It was not a trail for children or people who were inexperienced.

We could see where we were supposed to descend, but we had no idea how or where.




Isn't this just the most incredible place to be?  It was awesome to walk along this high ridge:




We weren't terribly concerned because we knew we could always retrace our steps. This would have created a long and very hard hike, though.

We did not know where this trail led, or how to get back to our car. We decided to keep climbing. Eventually we reached a place where the trail descended, although when we got to the bottom we realized that the trail we took down would have been impossible to find if we had gone counter clockwise.

After we returned, and I examined our GPS data I realized that the trail we took was not on the hiking map.

So I did more digging, and found several references on line to a trail called the John Krein trail.

That is the trail we were on. And while it was fun, although difficult, we would have preferred to know where we are going. The trail map, although very pretty, did not have this trail. That is a serious omission, as some people could have accidentally found themselves on it unprepared for the steep climb and steep descent.

We have found this at other times--poorly marked trails, trails that are not on the hiking maps provided, inaccurate data, etc.

This is not good--one is out in the wilderness, with sometimes no easy backup.

Trail maps need to be super accurate.