Mt. Lemmon - Marshall Gulch Hike

It was such a pleasant surprise to see the abundance of fall color up on Mt. Lemmon last week that I made plans to take Kara down there to do some hiking.  We can practically see Mt. Lemmon from our house, yet it takes a good 2 1/2 hours to get down there & drive up to the top. Our goal for the day was to hike a loop from the Marshall Gulch TH (we rode through there on the Lemmon Drop) via the Marshall Gulch Trail to the Aspen Trail located in the Pusch Wilderness.  After arriving in Summerhaven we were pretty hungry. There are only a few spots up on the mountain to get food, the general store has some grocery type items, but we opted for the Cookie Cabin & Pizza Too.  What a great choice, fresh pizza & homemade apple cobbler. Now it was time to work off some calories.

Cookie Cabin in Summerhaven

Trailhead parking

Autumn was still going strong

Point me at the sky

New growth in the burn area

Proof of the devastating fire from a few years ago

Even the ferns were colorful

Aspen leaves

Best views in town

Yes, there's skiing up there too

The total distance for the hike was 4.2 miles mostly done at 8000'.  We were glad we did the hike in a CCW direction as the other way would have had a long steep climb in the beginning.  We finished the day with another stop at El Guero Canelo's for some Sonoran Hotdogs & Horchata!!  More pics can be seen here.