Anyone with roots in Tucson, like NewMexiKen, loves Sabino Canyon — often a summertime oasis in the desert, a place you could skinny dip after school. (Those days are long since gone. The congestion became so great as Tucson grew, that the Forest Service prohibited cars and ran a shuttle bus.)
But now, even that has changed as this story in the Arizona Daily Star tells. It begins:
It’s still a deep-cut, saguaro-studded slice of paradise on the edge of our daily lives — but flood-struck Sabino Canyon will never be the same.
“The canyon is forever changed,” said Heidi Schewel of the U.S. Forest Service as she trekked up Sabino this week.
“Whole sections of some slopes just collapsed and fell away. There are new channels entering the main channel that weren’t there before. The creek blew right through one section of the road and covered others with boulder fields. … Sabino is a different place now.”
No wonder.
The torrent that scoured the treasured recreation site northeast of Tucson July 31 was the worst flood ever recorded there — topping out at about 17,000 cubic feet per second, said Robert Lefevre, watershed program manager for the Forest Service.
Thanks to Dad for the link.