A Trail by Any Other Name

It was an unusually warm February morning in the Santa Catalina Mountains, a range that rises from the Sonoran desert just north of Tucson, Arizona. Saguaro, ocotillo, and barrel cactus dotted the rolling landscape. Two women guided their horses over a brand-new path while a trail crew stepped aside.

“Thank you, thank you,” called out one of the riders, who easily navigated the bouldery path. “We love what you’re doing. My horse thanks you, too.”

What the trail crew is doing is enacting the Santa Catalina Trail Plan, a ten-year project to build, update, and diversify 50 miles of trails across the busiest district of Southern Arizona’s Coronado National Forest.

Given its proximity to Tucson, some 10 miles southwest, the Coronado National forest’s Santa Catalina Ranger District attracts more than 2.4 million people every year, estimated to be two-thirds of the forest’s overall visitation. Most visitors converge at just a few areas in the district: on 9,171-foot Mount Lemmon, along recreation-packed Catalina Highway, and in Sabino Canyon Recreation Area, a popular summer destination with waterfalls, creeks, and shallow pools.

The district’s popularity has led to overcrowding, trail degradation, and conflicts between different recreationists. So in 2020, the National Forest Foundation (NFF) and its partners got to work. The teams started with rehabilitating areas impacted by that year’s Bighorn Fire, which burned nearly 200,000 acres, before moving on to addressing issues at the Santa Catalina’s most visited sites.

“We have to consider the mix of a growing city, major wildfire, plus the trend we are seeing that people are using trails on a daily or weekly basis as part of their lives,” says Adam Milnor, the recreation, heritage, and lands staff officer for the Coronado National Forest. “But complexity creates opportunity.”

As public lands across the country continue to contend with how to manage overcrowding, all options are on the table, from introducing permits and education to increasing fees. The NFF-backed Santa Catalina Trail Plan, meanwhile, has prioritized dispersing visitors and capitalizing on existing infrastructure. Despite only being halfway through the project timeline, visitors are already feeling the impact.

“We started off by really listening to visitor feedback,” said Eric Ruljancich, founder and owner of Outslope Trail Solutions, which designs, constructs, and repairs trails. He’s been at it for more than three decades.

Before designing the Santa Catalina Trail Plan, in addition to conducting a survey that yielded 3,000 pieces of feedback, the Forest Service, Outslope Trail Solutions, and other partners conducted workshops for individual user groups. “From mountain bikers to horseback riders, these focused sessions encouraged open dialogue, so we could better understand how people were recreating in these areas,” said Ruljancich.

The teams discovered that an area in need of intervention was Finger Rock Trail, a challenging but wildly scenic seven-mile route with views of a 100-foot rock formation in the shape of a pointing finger. Between 2017 and 2019, the trail saw an average of 4,000 hikers every January, Arizona’s peak hiking month. In 2022, that figure had risen to 14,500—a 260-percent increase.

As an out-and-back trail, the path was experiencing twice that amount of use. It also left hikers struggling with two-way traffic. The NFF and its partners discovered that by connecting the trail to a nearby route—the five-mile Pontatoc Canyon Trail—to create a loop.

The NFF secured a $100,000 grant from Arizona State Parks and Trails to construct the connector, which involved carving a trail in incredibly challenging terrain. To assist Ruljancich and his crew, dozens of volunteers from the Southern Arizona Hiking Club helped hike in water—climbing an elevation gain of 1,500 feet—to cache at the building site.

In February 2025, the connector trail opened to the public, creating a seven-mile loop that is already one of the top-rated routes in the Coronado. Within a month, it received more than 500 reviews averaging 4.9 stars on the hiking app AllTrails.

“The Finger Rock connector is an amazing example of dispersal,” said James Terlep, trails access coordinator for the Southern Arizona Hiking Club, which contributed a portion of the funds for building the new trail.

According to Jake Baechle, the recreation staff officer for the Santa Catalina Ranger District, finding solutions to overcrowding that simply make better use of existing infrastructure is key. Plus, “when people don’t have to see others as frequently, the visitor experience improves,” said Baechle.

The visitor feedback also revealed another issue from overcrowding: conflicts between different types of recreationists. The increase in popularity of other activities, particularly mountain biking and climbing, has created bottlenecks at destinations that had primarily served hikers and trail runners in the past.

Some 20 percent of trails in the Santa Catalina Ranger District permit mountain bikers, most of whom were converging in Golder Ranch, an area of sculpted granite dome and rugged washes formed by erosion of the Catalina Mountains. The trail system of nearly 20 miles meanders through desert terrain with panoramic views of towering saguaros, rocky outcrops, and distant peaks.

“Its large boulders and slab geology makes for a distinctive riding experience compared with other Sonoran Desert trail systems,” said Milnor, of the Forest Service.

To address the increase in mountain bikers at Golder Ranch, Ruljancich and his crew focused on creating long sight lines to avoid potential collisions. This involved rerouting paths and constructing discreet retaining walls that also help ward off erosion.

Meanwhile, at Crags Against Humanity, one of the most accessible and popular climbing areas on the Coronado, long wait times and overflowing parking were causing issues along Catalina Highway. The layout of the climbing area made this overcrowding difficult to manage: 51 routes—with grades ranging from 5.5 to 5.12—are concentrated just off the road.

The NFF helped secure funding to support the Climbing Association of Southern Arizona in making improvements. As an experienced climber and volunteer stewardship coordinator for the organization, Ruljancich and his trail crew widened the route from the parking area, enhanced the belay terraces at the base of the cliff faces to increase safety, and installed more signage—including maps of the area—to educate visitors and encourage more dispersal.

“Making recreation more sustainable often creates a better visitor experience,” said John Goraj, the NFF’s Southern Arizona program coordinator. “What we’ve been able to accomplish is a beautiful example of the power of partnership, of listening to both one another and visitors.”

Support to the NFF’s Southern Arizona Forest Fund at nationalforests.org/southernazforestfund, which focuses on reducing wildfire risk, managing treatment of invasive plants, and improving trails and recreation areas across the Coronado National Forest.

About the Author

Tucson-based Robin Tricoles has worked as a staff writer, podcaster, public radio reporter, and local host for NPR’s ‘All Things Considered’. Her stories about science, nature, and medicine have appeared in The Atlantic, The New Republic, and the Washingtonian.

Want to receive a physical copy of Light & Seed® in your mailbox? Become an annual donor of $25 or more to start receiving your copy twice a year.