(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, we come to you from the cooler temps atop Mount Lemmon.

We'll take a stop at Rose Canyon Lake.

(Richard) Everybody in Tucson knows about it.

If you were here Saturday, this place would be packed.

(Tom) The Catalina Highway isn't the only way to get to Summerhaven.

(Chuck) I think it's fantastic.

I wouldn't go any other way, personally, if I had the right vehicle.

You can't be timid, and you can't be in a hurry.

(Tom) A bike ride through Nogales with Karla Osete.

(Karla) It's a peaceful place, quiet, and now that we have supports for the art, it's great for families and their kids.

(Tom) And Steve Kozachik is still running, but not for reelection.

(Steve) You've got to have that place for your space.

You've got to have that place in your life where it's just your time.

[Music] (Tom) Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara and we're joining you today from atop Mount Lemmon.

Now, to be honest, it's just too hot to shoot our program down in Tucson.

And we could go on and on about the things we all enjoy about Mount Lemmon.

But this essay from Mike Nervik from our Favorite Places series does a great job of summing it up.

[Music] (Michael) As I started thinking about my favorite place, I kept coming back to a location that has provided fond memories for me from my childhood and now as a parent.

[Music] My favorite place is Mount Lemmon.

[Music] As you began to drive at the base of the mountain, you're surrounded in the foothills by saguaros Toyas creosote bushes and other typical Sonoran Desert vegetation.

As you began to climb in elevation the saguaros and the desert plants are replaced by high desert grasses and shrubs, and even some smaller evergreen bushes.

[Music] The climb gets higher and you reach a place where the plant seemed to be overtaken by rock outcroppings known as hoodoos.

Once you make the switchbacks through the hoodoos and numerous vistas you begin in the forest areas with cottonwoods, oaks and aspens.

As you reach 6 to 7,000 feet, you start to come into the ponderosa pines and the oaks that will be your surroundings for the remainder of the trip up the peak.

In the summer when the Valley is in the middle of triple digits, you can drive up Mount Lemmon for a quick escape and have at least a 20 degree temperature swing.

[Music] Mount Lemmon also provides winter activities, such as sledding, skiing, and snowboarding.

at the peak of Mount Lemmon, sit Ski Valley affording you the opportunity in the winter to play in the snow during the day and come home for dinner at night.

[Music] (woman laughing) Astronomy's another benefit that the mountain provides.

Many astronomers will travel to the mountain for stargazing to get away from the city lights.

[Music] I would be amiss if I did not mention Summerhaven.

Summerhaven is a small town near the top of Mount Lemmon.

I remember visiting as a child and walking through the town, made of small shops and private wood cabins, as far as you can see.

[Music] We would travel the mountain just to have dinner or lunch in Summerhaven and get a cookie and ice cream at the cookie cabin.

[Music] Miraculously, due to the skill and bravery of the firefighters during the recent Bighorn fire, they were actually able to completely save Summerhaven and Ski Valley.

[Music] I've been through many fires on Mount Lemmon in my time here.

[Music] And one thing that always happens is that new life will come from the ashes.

(Tom) Water is a valuable and essential resource in the Sonoran Desert and a six acre lake here on Mount Lemmon attracts both people and animals.

Rose Canyon Lake, a very scenic location that's been attracting visitors for many generations.

[Music] [MUSIC] We're here at Rose Canyon Lake, which is located at about 6,900 foot elevation.

So it's not gonna offer as cool temperatures as the top of Mount Lemmon will, but it does offer cooler temps and shade and a nice escape with the water nearby.

Rose Canyon Lake is part of the Santa Catalina Ranger District and our district is one of five districts that make up the Coronado National Forest.

Rose Canyon Lake is particularly popular due to it being the only lake on our district.

Folks know that water is special in the desert and they wanna come up and experience that.

And so it's very popular for people that like to fish.

But we also have a 73 site campground located just up the hill from the lake that campground is very popular.

So people love to camp here, they love to hike around the lake.

This is one of our lowest elevation sites that has a lot of tree cover.

So it's a nice escape from the heat.

(Patricia) This is my second time here and it's just a really nice lake to get out of the heat, come up for the day, lots of squirrels, lots of frog, fish, birds.

We generally just bring our lunch up with us and do a little picnic.

And it's just a nice way to come up and see all the animals and cool off in the heat of the summer.

(Richard) This is my first time up here I just doing some research on the internet somewhere close to Oracle for some mountain fishing.

Hopefully a little bit cooler temperatures than Roosevelt or some of the surrounding lakes.

It's pretty, a smaller body of water.

I thought it'd be a little bit bigger, but bad day fishing is better than a good day at work.

(Richard) I've been here before to the lake.

I haven't been up here in a long time.

It's the first time in quite a few years actually.

Normally we're bass fishing.

It's 105 at Roosevelt Lake today, so not going.

-laughs- Everybody in Tucson knows about it.

If you were here Saturday, this place would be packed, probably.

I mean, I've seen the whole shoreline covered with people fishing.

(Neil) My name is Neil Dutt.

I am the district biologist for the Santa Catalina Ranger District here in the Coronado National Forest.

It is a man-made lake that does kind of introduce a different sort of ecosystem that would normally be here.

It's a permanent source of water, which isn't something that's guaranteed in a lot of places in Arizona.

So the wildlife come to depend on this as a valuable water source for the hotter months.

Some species you can expect to see here, possibly, at least.

We've got black bear, mountain lions, white-tailed deer.

Those are the big mammals that people like to see.

They'll come down here typically in the evenings, early mornings, or at night when there's fewer people around to drink from the lake.

Arizona Game and Fish stocks this lake on an almost monthly basis.

It's kind of not as often in the summertime.

So unfortunately, as the lake warms, it's not as good of habitat for trout.

They like very cold water.

So the trout in the summertime are likely going to go very deep in this lake and just kind of hunker down.

Some of the non-native species that we do have here, unfortunately, we do have a pretty large population of bullfrogs.

They are non-native invasive species here in Arizona.

There are likely some crawfish in the lake as well, though their numbers have been down recently.

We haven't seen many of them.

We do have cattails in this lake that aren't native to this area.

They're likely brought in by migrating waterfowl, something like that.

We don't do anything to try to control them because they can only exist in so many areas, and they are good habitat for a lot of species that are in this lake as well.

(Jake) Water is extra special here in the desert.

I love to come out here on weekdays if I can because the crowds aren't as big.

It's a really special place, and to me, if you can find it in a moment of solitude, it makes it extra special.

There's a nice path on the north side of the lake that is accessible and goes out to a popular dock that can also be accessible by wheelchair.

So it's great for everyone.

(Neil) I was born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, so I came up here when I was younger with my parents to recreate, go fishing, go camping.

I've known about this lake and I've been recreating at this lake for a long time.

So it's really kind of special to me to be able to manage this lake as much as we can.

(Patricia) It's just a beautiful lake and a beautiful experience and a nice, easy drive from Tucson to just come up, cool off and enjoy.

I love my water.

I'm from California.

I miss the beach.

It allows me to come up and reset and enjoy the water and the sound of nature.

So it is a big deal.

(Tom) Catalina Highway was constructed from 1933 to 1950, and in the years since, it's allowed millions of people to travel up here to Mount Lemmon and Summerhaven.

Now, before that, residents had to travel to the small town of Oracle, north of Tucson, and then get on the control road or the old Mount Lemmon Highway, which is a very rough, unpaved route to up here at the top of the mountain.

(engine rumbling) - When I first retired 20 years ago, had neighbors that had 4-wheel drive vehicles and we decided to drive it because it was supposed to be very interesting.

And from there I happened to get my first ATV, this is my second, and I just naturally wanted to come up here because it is so beautiful.

(light music) - Oracle Control Road was completed in 1920.

It took three years to build it and it was built by the Forest Service and Pima and Pinal counties.

And it really opened up Mount Lemmon to vehicular traffic.

There were a lot of mines and ranches back there and previously access was pretty much by horse or mule or on foot, so that was the roaded access up Mount Lemmon Highway until the Catalina Highway was built, the paved road that's on the south side of the mountain range.

So it really gave those folks back there a lot of mobility and made quite a bit of difference.

- This kind of put Oracle back on the map, it was the last town, in fact, and this was the first building you would have seen when you got on what they call the Mount Lemmon Highway.

So this is a picture taken in 1930 and it's about, it's really close to our museum, so this is the beginning of the Mount Lemmon Highway and it's called The Little Schmitty Boys in Their Burrows and it shows a Coca-Cola sign that says, "Mount Lemmon," spelled wrong, "30 miles."

Lemmon is two Ms and there's one M on the sign.

- [Heidi] The Oracle Control Road is dirt and it's called control because some parts of it were really narrow and there wasn't room for two lanes of traffic on it so they would kind of stagger traffic.

It would go up the mountain at these times and come down the mountain at these times, so traffic flow was controlled in that way.

If you're going down, you'll start off, you'll be in mixed conifer forest for a little while and then you open out into those sweeping vistas of the grassy oak woodlands.

- I get to just jump in my vehicle and bring binoculars, you know, just sit out here and enjoy.

The topography, I think, just offers a lot.

There's just different parts of the day that you want to be here because this overcast is really nice, this is gonna roll in, it's just gonna give it a different look and then when we have the sun going, you just see shadows casted and stuff, so, and then we can't forget the snow.

- The main differences we're gonna see between the road on the south side, the paved highway, and the dirt road on the other side, is gonna be geological.

We're gonna pick up many different kinds of rocks, including limestone, which is totally absent from the south side of the mountain.

It's on the north side of the mountain.

And, also, the road doesn't descend to the same elevations as it does here.

Here, the road goes down to below 3000 feet.

On the north side, we get no lower than 4500 feet.

So, it never gets warm enough for the saguaros and the palo verde.

- On the north side of the mountain, we can find lots of mountain mahogany in the areas with limestone.

They're notable for their clever little seeds that look like little tornadoes.

Mountain mahogany isn't the only plant that has an affinity for limestone.

As you can see in the hill behind me here, there's also a lot of agaves and a lot of this, and this is sotol, also known as Desert Spoon.

It's a fine plant for making walking sticks.

This is Peppersauce Canyon, it's home to Peppersauce Campground.

It's best known for its large, large sycamores, I think.

In addition, there's walnut trees and hackberry trees and the walnuts are nogales and they provide plenty of food for coatimundis, some time of the year and you can see whole troops of coatis underneath the nogales, collecting all the nuts.

The sycamore trees often have large hollows and they are home to spotted owls, which was a surprise that was discovered in the 1990s.

We thought spotted owls lived only high up in the mountain.

(laughing) - I was like, "It's super chill."

- We're nursing students at the University of Arizona working on our masters.

As you can kind of see, we were caving.

We came out here today to explore Peppersauce Cave and it's about two hours of playing, basically, down in a cave and getting muddy.

Just team-building, I really wanted to get all of us students together so I knew this was a opportunity.

We got in there, got super muddy, got down low and it was super easy to do and I loved it.

- There's a huge lake at the bottom that you can dive into if you want.

We were not brave enough to do that.

I'm not that brave.

But it's beautiful, the water's super clear, you can see all the way to the bottom.

I am from Long Island, New York, so, going from there and never being on the West Coast before coming to here, complete shell-shock and I love it.

- [Interviewer] What do you think about having this, right here in your own backyard, this road that takes you all the way to Mount Lemmon?

- I think it's fantastic.

I wouldn't go any other way, personally, if I had the right vehicle.

You can't be timid and you can't be in a hurry.

- It's a beautiful hidden gem, this road.

Especially if you're a photographer or you're a bird watcher 'cause there's a lot of birds on Mount Lemmon that you don't find on the East Coast.

You will love coming out here.

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Next we take you on a tour through Nogales with painter, sculptor and mountain biker, Karla Osete.

She believes an artist will tell the history of Nogales to future generations.

It's part of a four-part series on the Morley Arts District in Nogales.

These stories were produced outside of AZPM with editorial independence and funding was provided by the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Santa Cruz County American Rescue Plan Act.

[Bike chain] (Karla) I am a mountain biker, so I've had the opportunity to see wonderful views of the desert that not everybody can do in the city or drive in a car.

So it's wonderful.

I like to paint about the border, too.

[Silence] My name is Karla Osete, and I am from Nogales, Arizona.

I am a painter and a sculptor.

So I was born in Nogales, Arizona.

It was a big experience to live the cross-border culture and have influence of both sides of the border.

The big influence for my art is my family.

My latest sculpture was the Giant Metal Bike.

The bike is located at Monte Carlo Community.

It's a wonderful project made out of recycled metals.

It was a very ambitious sculpture because of its size.

33 by 19 feet tall was not an easy project.

The bike is a large scale of my own mountain bike.

[Silence] The mural at the Nogales Community Development Building is titled "Torch Cactus Blooms."

That was a really excited project.

The mural I put on the background, geometric figures, sort of a mandala design.

And in my mind, I pictured the building as it was my giant Rubik's Cube.

I've been in other places, temporarily, to study or work, but I love this border town.

You see a big influence of color, of content, of subject matter that you don't see anywhere else.

You can see social political along with faith.

We can see the landscape of the area is so precious.

You don't see anywhere else.

I mean, look at it.

Any way you look, you can see beautiful mountains.

Even the border is a work of art itself.

It's a peaceful place, quiet.

And now that we have supports for the art, and probably hoping to have more support, it's a great opportunity, a great example for families and their kids to get exposed to art and culture.

I think supporting artists is a wonderful thing, because if you empower an artist, it's like you can get to very remote places.

I think we're doing place making in this border town.

Little by little, we'll bring economic development to the area.

It's not unknown.

Business and people move to places where there is art.

So I think it's a wonderful movement that a few people started here in Nogales, and I don't see a stop to it.

The art we're living now as a global language will tell history to future generations, regardless of any point in time, of any age, of any physical structure.

Art will speak for us.

And our mission as an artist is we have a responsibility to leave something to future generations.

(Tom) Steve Kozachik is very well known around Tucson.

He worked at the U of A for over 30 years, was elected to the city council in 2009.

And in this profile of him from a few years ago, you'll see that he still keeps up his morning running routine, but he won't be running for reelection anymore.

In 2024, he announced his resignation from his council position and accepted a job managing the new Mosaic Quarter Sports Complex for Pima County.

People have asked multiple times since I started doing this job in the council back in 2009, whether I can come and meet them for their breakfast meeting.

And the answer is no, that's my inviolate time.

I'm out of bed out the door and I put in 10 to 15 miles every morning.

And then the day starts.

So we have an IGA on consent tonight and essentially the IGA stipulates a few things.

One is that any property that re-enewable may become involved with needs to be publicly owned.

First councilman Kozaczyk mentioned we've had an extensive dialogue.

I'm on campus and then I'm either a council meeting or in the evenings I'm at the council office or at meetings.

Pick the house up and move it back for a few hundred thousand dollars.

Real quickly, so thank you very much for the presentation.

I deal with designers and planners and architects all the time.

There's an old African proverb that when the sun comes up, if you're a lion, you better be able to run faster than the slowest gazelle you starve.

If you're a gazelle, you better be able to outrun the fastest lion or you'll get eaten.

So when the sun comes up, you better be running, whether you're a lion or a gazelle.

That's me first thing in the morning out the doorman.

You know, I see a lot of coyotes and sometimes some javelina and people with their puppies walking along.

They're always fun to stop on the pet and play with.

I think about the day and I wear a fanny pack with a notepad in it and if something pops into my head that I don't want to forget or write it down and keep running.

So you know, just lots of things go through your head when you're on your own.

I was in my mid-30s and at the time my wife was jogging with a girlfriend of hers and did this ungodly thing of running a 10k and I said to her one day, you can't run six miles without stopping.

My idea of a run was 90 feet from one end of a basketball court to the other.

She in fact did it and then humiliated me into starting it by telling me my butt was getting fat and so I better start doing it myself.

Long story short, since then I've run dozens and dozens of marathons.

I've run across the state of Colorado 350 something miles.

I've run over a hundred miles several times as well.

So it's now just a kind of part of who I am.

It's really not a competitive thing anymore.

I gave that up a long time ago.

I was hit by a car and had some muscle severed at the time I was running for speed running marathons.

Now it's long slow distance.

If I try and sprint and really stride out then I'll just pull a muscle or something.

So it's mental time.

It's not really the physical piece of the form.

From the time I'm done with my run in the morning to the time I get home at night, usually 10 10 30 at night, that's really the only time I've got just for my own time.

Before I leave the ward office every night I spend a little time on the guitar and sort of calm down again at the end of the day.

You've got to have that place for your space.

You've got to have that place in your life where it's just your time.

Whether it's music, whether it's exercise or running, whether it's macrame or whatever people do.

But you need to carve that piece of your day out that's just for you.

Where other people kind of aren't grabbing at you and saying I need you for this, I need you for that.

(Tom) Before we go here's a sneak peek at a few stories we're working on.

(Daphne) I found that most kids kind of stopped in second grade because of very common practices.

The teacher is showing you pictures and words and you're like yes I can do it.

Then in second grade the teacher takes away the pictures and then tells you just picture it in your mind.

Now the pictures are gone and the child doesn't have any crutch left to use to develop the words in their head so they get stuck.

What's happening today is that we're going to have two kids who have not been successful reading.

So we're trying to spark a little bit of light.

We're finding a book that's in their vocabulary range and then igniting the connections.

(Tony) It's pretty easily distinguished from a lot of our native plants and it has a glossy shine to it.

African Sumac was brought here in the mid to early 1900s as the U.S. government and U of A were looking for drought adapted plants that could be brought to the southwest and live in an arid environment.

So unfortunately we succeeded and we brought in the most drought adapted plants that also have a lot of invasive qualities to them.

(Tom) All right it's time for a nice cool trail walk.

Thanks for joining us from up here on Mount Lemmon.

I'm Tom McNamara.

We'll see you again next week for another Arizona Illustrated.