Mount Lemmon

Mount Lemmon (O'odham: Babad Doʼag), with a summit elevation of 9,159 feet (2,792 m), is the highest point in the Santa Catalina Mountains. It is located in the Coronado National Forest north of Tucson, Arizona, United States. Mount Lemmon was named for botanist Sara Plummer Lemmon, who trekked to the top of the mountain with her husband and E. O. Stratton, a local rancher, by horse and foot in 1881. It is reported that Mount Lemmon Ski Valley, on the mountain's northeastern side, receives 200 inches (508 cm) of snow annually.

Summerhaven

Summerhaven is a small town near the top of the mountain. It is a summer residence for many but there are some year round residents. There are many small cabins most of which were rebuilt after the Aspen Fire of July 2003.

Mount Lemmon Station Observatory

At the peak is the Mount Lemmon Observatory, which was formerly the site of a USAF radar base of the Air Defense Command, and the building that formerly housed a military emergency radar tracking station for landing the Space Shuttle at White Sands Missile Range. Although the United States military had a presence on the mountain for several decades all their facilities have been abandoned and were given to the United States Forest Service. The area and buildings that makes up the Mount Lemmon Station Observatory are leased from the Forest Service by the University of Arizona. The telescopes on the mountain are still used for astronomical research today by organizations such as the Catalina Sky Survey, and The Mount Lemmon Sky Center, The University of Arizona Astronomy Camp program, the University of Arizona, and the University of Minnesota. The educational resources at the top of the mountain make it a unique research and teaching destination.

Windy Point

The location 'Windy Point' was built by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, using a large number of prisoners over a period of 18 years, and is a popular place for outdoor weddings.

Catalina Highway

The Catalina Highway, also called the Mount Lemmon Highway, as well as the Hitchcock Highway (after Frank Harris Hitchcock) runs up the Santa Catalina Mountains from the east side of Tucson up to Summerhaven, at the top of Mt. Lemmon. The beautiful, curving road is a favorite drive for tourists, for locals escaping summer's heat and cyclists, and has been recently designated as the Sky Island Parkway, part of the US National Scenic Byway system.

The highway and other roads around the area were used for the first training camp for professional cycling Team Radioshack in December 2009. 2010 saw the inaugural running of the Mount Lemmon Marathon.

Back side

A dirt "access" road to the summit on the "back side" of Mount Lemmon starts in Oracle, which is on state highway 77 northeast of Tucson. It offers a secondary route to the top. This route is popular with off-road 4x4 drivers and with off-road or dual-purpose motorcyclists. This road ends at the Catalina Highway near Loma Linda. Before the Catalina Highway was built it was the only route up the mountain.

See also

• List of Ultras of North America
• List of Ultras of the United States
• Mount Lemmon Observatory
• Mount Lemmon Ski Valley
• Mount Lemmon Survey

References

External links

• "Mount Lemmon". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. 
• "Mt. Lemmon". SummitPost.org. 
• NOAA Mt. Lemmon Forecast.
• Information about the year round public programs at the SkyCenter.
• Information about the astronomical observatory.
• The Catalina Sky Survey.
• David Leighton, "Street Smarts: Highway, mountain named for botanist," Arizona Daily Star, Jan. 05, 2015