Leslie and I and our friend Charles had an awesome weekend getaway to Tucson, Kartchner Caverns, and Sonoita Creek.
We took off Friday night and checked out the Tuscon Night Life.
We got up early the next morning to catch our reservations to one of Arizona's newest State Parks. Unfortunately they do not let you take any photos inside the cave so I'll just post a link here. http://azstateparks.com/Parks/KACA/history.html
It seems like Arizona deals with caves much differently than Oregon or Washington does. Granted this was a pretty amazing cave, it seems like Arizona put more time, money, and politics into this place than Oregon would put into its school system. This was a huge cavern complex that was completely illuminated, had 2 man made access tunnels, 6 vault doors to enter the cavern and was 100% wheelchair accessible. We even got an electric cart ride about 500 feet from the visitor center to the Cave doorway. Not too bad for a $22 price tag.
After our cave tour we continued driving south towards Patagonia AZ and stumbled across a small annual "Blessing of the Vine" wine festival way off the beaten path in Elgin AZ.
We made it to our trail head around 3pm and hiked about 4 miles down to our Sonotia Creek Campground.
Keep an eye out for the Gila Monsters
There's also plenty of US Border Patrol in this part of AZ including Border Patrol Check points on your way back to Tuscon.
Post Backpacking Refuel at El Torero in Tuscon.
