Tucson Mts: Yetman Trail Through Hike

• Total Distance: 6.0 miles
• Total Elevation Gain: 1000'

• Rated "C" Intermediate
  **RESTRICTIONS: No guests, dogs, firearms or tobacco
  Cell Phones: SILENT during hike
  Duration: 4-5 hours (+-)

Bring: water, food for snack/lunch, sun protection, hiking poles if needed.

This through hike requires a car shuttle.
Here is how it will work.

All hikers will meet at the Gates Pass Scenic Lookout parking area in time for an 7:00 departure. This is the western terminus of the Yetman Trail. (See: https://tinyurl.com/yjzyjhwx).
Using as few cars as possible we will carpool to the Camino de Oeste Trailhead (See: https://tinyurl.com/yh4n2cnp) which is the eastern terminus of the Yetman Trail to begin the hike.
Here is the shuttle route: https://tinyurl.com/yg653zdd

We will then hike back to the Gates Pass parking area via the Yetman Trail and shuttle the Camino de Oeste drivers back to their cars.

The Hike Map: https://tinyurl.com/yetwfkgc

This hike will take us past the Bowen Stone House, an old ruin which was constructed at this secluded and remote location in the early 1930s by Sherry and Ruby Bowen.
The section from Camino de Oeste to Bowen Stone House is flanked on both sides by towering Saguaros, mesquite and palo verde trees.
More information about the Bowen House is here: https://tinyurl.com/ydsd8y47

We will stop briefly at the Bowen House before hiking through a short section of wash then climbing up to Yetman Saddle at 2nd Ridge. Once here we will take a short spur to the Starr Valley Vista point which gives a commanding view of the Starr Valley, the distant mountain ranges and nearby Big and Little Cat mountains and Starr Pass which was blasted out between the mountains to provide passage for mining wagons back in the late 1890s.

We will then drop down from Yetman Saddle into the Starr Valley and then trend west between 1st(Bobcat) and 2nd ridges where there is a thick and lush Saguaro forest on the south flank of 2nd Ridge and a dense growth of jojoba and palo verde on the north facing flank of 1st ridge.
Just before a short series of switchbacks along the bahada of 1st Ridge we will see a nice specimen of a Crested Saguaro at the base of 2nd Ridge.

After the switchbacks the trail then opens back up at the end of 1st and 2nd Ridge where we will see an old abandoned '58 Chevy down over the back.
As we head west we will be face to face with Golden Gate and Bren Mts.
We will then drop down to the base of the these two mountains and climb up to the saddle which spans Golden Gate and Bren Mt. On the other side the trail drops down to the parking area at Gates Pass.

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About David Yetmann for whom this trail was named.

David Albert Yetman (born 1941) is an American academic expert on Sonora, Mexico and an Emmy award-winning media presenter on the world's deserts. He is a research social scientist at the University of Arizona.

His TV career as host of The Desert Speaks began in 2000, a series lasting 9 years. His PBS series In the Americas with David Yetman began in 2011 and deals with quirky and interesting corners of the Western Hemisphere. As of 2020, eight seasons of ten episodes each have aired.

Yetman is a 'voice' for desert regions and their peoples. Like colleagues at the University of Arizona, Gary Nabhan, Tom Sheridan and Joe Wilder, his focus is on the desert regions of south-west USA and Northern Mexico. He specializes in the plants, geography and the lifeways and cultures of the region's indigenous peoples, particularly in northwestern Mexico. By 2010 he estimated he had crossed the US-Mex border 500 times. His publications date back to the 1980s and often deal with the plant use of particular tribes and peoples.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Yetman