Officials: No way to plan for closing mountain

Leonardo Toledo, 4, enjoys his first time playing in snow at Summerhaven on Tuesday.

As sheriff’s deputies saw it, snow revelers left them with one option: Close the mountain.

They hope they won’t have to repeat last weekend’s decision this weekend, but meteorologists predict snow. Deputies predict traffic jams.

The Mount Lemmon Highway was closed Sunday because Tucson’s favorite road trip destination was filled beyond capacity.

“It was gridlocked,” sheriff’s spokeswoman Deputy Dawn Barkman said Tuesday. “We had people parking in the roadway to play in the snow.”

Firefighters reported triple-parking-induced backups winding 20 miles down the mountain, all the way to Houghton Road.

Mount Lemmon got about 18 inches of snow last week, and another 5 inches fell Monday, National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Rasmussen said.

The Mount Lemmon Highway was closed Monday, as well.

The draw of snowballs and angel making was too much for some desert dwellers over the weekend, Barkman said. They leapt from cars that had barely stopped.

“The mountain is very popular,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

It’s a problem authorities acknowledge can have serious safety implications but one they see as impossible to solve.

“I don’t know what kind of pre-planning we could do,” Barkman said. “We can’t stop people from going up the mountain.”

A couple of times in recent memory, they did. It was a last resort, Barkman said.

She said deputies take care of traffic snarls when they happen and personnel has been shifted to deal with the crowds. Deputies assigned to rural areas help out the two Mount Lemmon deputies when needed.

Pima County Department of Transportation maintenance and operations manager Dave Cummings said no traffic mitigation plans are in the works because traffic is not often a problem on the mountain.

The Forest Service also reported no change in plans. Spokeswoman Heidi Schewel said the service has no idea how many people ascend Mount Lemmon because not everyone who passes by the toll booth buys a permit and many have annual passes.

For firefighters, the risks that come with winter weather and its enthusiasts is measured in injuries to people and recently damage to a fire engine.

When Mount Lemmon received its first snow of the season three weeks ago, firefighters responded to four calls over 2 1/2 hours on a single milelong stretch of highway, Capt. Dennis Rankin said.

As the fire engine tried to squeeze through the small space between double- and triple-parked cars, it lost a side-view mirror, paramedic Jesus Canales said.

Ten people have been injured playing in the snow this year, he said.

That’s typical. So is the struggle to get to those people.

It’s for that reason that Mount Lemmon business owners don’t blame county officials for the road closures.

A closed road may mean a closed shop for Phil and Carol Mack, owners of the Mount Lemmon General Store & Gift Shop, but they see it as a necessary halt to the chaos.

“From a business perspective, I have no complaint when they close the road because I know it’s justified,” Carol Mack said. “It’s hard to fit all of Tucson into such a small space.”

Sometimes the Macks even ask people not to come to their store.

Phil Mack said that while he understands the need to close the road, he wishes the need for closure could be quantified. He suggested a count at the poll station.

“There’s got to be a way to say when enough is enough,” he said.

Now, that decision is made by the two deputies on shift when the crowding seems out of hand. “It’s a judgment call,” Barkman said.

Business owners, public safety and Forest Service officials said common sense would go a long way to making Mount Lemmon more of a winter wonderland and less of a traffic nightmare. It would also make it safer.

Here are tips from officials on how to make a weekend trip up the mountain better:

• Obey parking rules. If you park with even one wheel over the white line, you could receive a ticket.

• When pulling off the road, check to see how deep the snow is. If a tow truck agrees to pull you out of the snowbank, you will likely have to pay a snow fee.

• Sled far enough away that you do not end up in the roadway. No one has been hurt that way this year, but emergency workers worry about the possibility.

• When sledding, use a sled. Paramedics treat many fingers cut by trash can lids and many puncture wounds on legs and butts poked by unseen tree stumps.

• Try a weekday trip instead of a weekend trek. On Tuesday, sledders had plenty of space to ride.

People enjoy the snow at Summerhaven on Tuesday. Sledding was the most popular activity, with sleds sold at the local general store.

Donny Uhlmann, 18, enjoys a ride in Summerhaven on Tuesday. There was plenty of space for snow lovers.

Andrea Martinez, 23, slides down a hill on a sled Tuesday. She spent a fun day on Mount Lemmon.

Mount Lemmon snow fun

Several visitors and many Tucsonans enjoyed the snowy slopes at Mount Lemmon Tuesday afternoon.

Producer: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson Citizen

Slide 1 of 13.
People enjoy the snow at Summerhaven on Tuesday. Sledding was the most popular activity, with sleds sold at the local general store.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 2 of 13.
Leonardo Toledo, 4, enjoys his first time in the snow at Summerhaven on Tuesday. He was with his mother Alma Toledo and his cousin Joel Toledo.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 3 of 13.
Andrea Martinez, 23, slides down a snowy hill on a sled while spending the day on Mount Lemmon.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 4 of 13.
Joel Toledo, 16, slides down the snowy hill on a plastic bag while spending the day on Mount Lemmon.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 5 of 13.
Donny Uhlmann, 18, slides down a steep hill at Summerhaven on Tuesday. A Tucson native, Uhlmann is visiting from Connecticut for the holidays.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 6 of 13.
Donny Uhlmann, 18, slides down a snowy hill at Summerhaven on Tuesday.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 7 of 13.
Adriana Lasala, 15, collapses in the snow after sledding down a slope at Mount Lemmon on Tuesday. Lasala and her siblings were visiting from Puerto Rico.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 8 of 13.
Daria Lasala, 40, sleds down a slope at Mount Lemmon. Lasala brought her four stepchildren, visiting from Puerto Rico, and her 4-year-old daughter Sofia to play in the snow.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 9 of 13.
Mary Littlehorn, 32, slides down a slope with her 4-year-old daughter, Kaydence, at Mount Lemmon on Tuesday. "We go every year," Littlehorn said.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 10 of 13.
Mark Falcon helps his son Justin, 3, out of his wet gloves and into his own while enjoying the snow on Mount Lemmon on Tuesday.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 11 of 13.
Justin Falcon, 3, plays in the snow in his father's gloves at Mount Lemmon on Tuesday.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 12 of 13.
Mariana Arturo, 13, helps her sister Roberta, 3, through the snow while spending the day on Mount Lemmon on Tuesday. The two were visiting from Sinaloa, Mexico, with their family.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson CitizenSlide 13 of 13.
Ski Valley at Mount Lemmon was closed on Tuesday. Call 576-1400 for information.
Source: HEATHER RAFTERY/Tucson Citizen

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SNOW TALLY

Mount Lemmon got about 18 inches of snow during storms last week, and another 5 inches fell Monday, said National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Rasmussen.

Mount Lemmon’s Ski Valley said the resort had 6 inches of groomed powder and 29 inches of base snow Monday, though the slopes were closed.

The fire district reported 12 inches on the ground Tuesday, Rasmussen said.

“For the next couple days, everything looks great, then there is another system coming in,” he said.

Rasmussen said the next system will not likely be a major snow producer, but it’s too early to tell for sure.

B. POOLE

bpoole@tucsoncitizen.com (bpoole@tucsoncitizen.com)

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A Tucson woman lost overnight on Mount Lemmon was found very near where she was last seen.

Karen Norris, 52, was found about 9 a.m. Thursday by a Pima County Search and Rescue team, according to Deputy Dawn Barkman, Sheriff’s Department spokesperson.

“She has a migraine, but appears to be fine other than that,” Barkman said.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety Ranger helicopter and the Southern Arizona Rescue Association assisted in the search.

Norris was lost when she and her boyfriend were hiking near the Palisades area on Mount Lemmon at about noon Wednesday.

Barkman said the boyfriend “temporarily” lost sight of Norris as they were hiking to their camping spot near the Prison Camp rock climbing area. The boyfriend reported Norris missing at about 3 p.m.

Barkman said deputies searched for Norris into the night Wednesday, but did not know if they searched through the night.

The beauty of Saguaro National Park didn't prevent one woman from killing herself there last year.

SALT LAKE CITY – Freshly unemployed, former business executive Bruce J. Colburn flew to the far northwest corner of Montana in search of a place to die.

In early October, he paid a hotel clerk to drive him into Glacier National Park. He spent the night in a campground and then made his way on foot to a valley between two deep glacial lakes. On a forested slope not far from the trail, he shot himself in the chest with a handgun, according to park officials.

Although his motivation remains unclear, investigators found evidence on a computer that the 53-year-old Reading, Pa., resident had searched for information about suicide in Glacier park, according to Patrick Suddath, branch chief of ranger operations at Glacier.

“He clearly intended to come here for that purpose,” said Suddath, who led an extensive search after the man was reported missing.

Colburn was one of at least 33 people who chose to end their lives last year in a national park. The number is higher than recent years, although the National Park Service hasn’t consistently tracked suicides.

More suicides occur in Grand Canyon than any other park in recent years. The park averages two a year. There were three in 2008.

“It’s some place where, toward the end of someone’s life, when they’re feeling a total sense of despondency, they want to return to a place of natural beauty . . . for their final moments,” Suddath said.

Park officials estimate people made more than 274 million visits to the country’s 391 national park units last year. The vast majority are intent on seeing breathtaking vistas, wildlife in its natural habitat or places where history was made, such as the Gettysburg battlefield. A troubled few came to end their lives. Among them:

• A 70-year-old woman left a suicide note in the trunk of her car at Arizona’s Saguaro National Park before killing herself about a half-mile from a trailhead.

• A 46-year-old carpenter with cancer climbed into a canoe and vanished in Everglades National Park.

• A 49-year-old builder blamed the economy in a note he left for his ex-wife and attorney before killing himself at the edge of the woods at Georgia’s Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

• A 65-year-old university biology professor disappeared into Utah’s Canyonlands National Park, telling relatives in a note he was returning “body and soul to nature.”

• Three people, in separate cases, jumped off a towering bridge at West Virginia’s New River Gorge National River.

In 2007, there were 26 suicides or probable suicides in the parks. Park Service search-and-rescue records – which are likely incomplete – show 18 suicides in 2006, 18 in 2005 and 16 in 2004.

Suicides have been on the rise in some places like Colorado National Monument, where 26 people attempted suicide last year. Two were successful, including a 21-year-old man who hanged himself from a juniper tree near Cold Shivers Point in July.

The numbers there are partly a reflection of nearby Mesa County, where the suicide rate is roughly twice the national average, said Joan Anzelmo, the monument’s superintendent. But it’s also a testament to people’s connections with national parks, places they go to hike, escape urban life and even get married.

“They come here in the happiest of times and unfortunately some choose to come in the saddest time of their lives,” Anzelmo said.

Suicides can take a toll emotionally on rangers and financially for agencies that are part of search-and-recovery operations. After Colburn went missing in Glacier, as many as 40 people from various agencies looked for him. Recovering bodies or cars that go over cliffs can be dangerous as well as expensive.

Most law enforcement rangers in national parks are also trained in emergency medicine, which includes strategies in dealing with people in crisis. Some park employees are taught to keep an eye out for notes taped to steering wheels and at least one park, Colorado National Monument, has contemplated closing certain areas at night.

Several suicides are prevented by rangers each year, but it would be impossible to stop them all.

“I think anybody that does the kind of work that we do would like to offer hope to anybody that’s at that point of despair in their life,” said Lane Baker, the Park Service’s chief of law enforcement, security and emergency services. “But I’m not sure we can do anything to change that.”

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ON THE WEB

www.nps.gov

Sunny skies are predicted Saturday through Tuesday with higher temperatures that could open the Catalina Highway up Mount Lemmon to skiers.

Tucsonans could not ski at Ski Valley on Friday because the road remained closed at the base of the mountain to all but residents and those who work there.

Vehicles needed chains or four-wheel drive to be permitted on the road, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.

The road was closed Friday after snow and gusty winds toppled trees and shut off power to most of the residents and businesses on Mount Lemmon.

Power was restored by midafternoon Friday.

The National Weather Service in Tucson said the Friday night low in the Tucson area will be 29 degrees.

That means Operation Deep Freeze, which provides shelter to the homeless during freezing weather, will be in effect Friday evening.

Rain is expected to continue through the evening and taper off overnight.

Heavy snow was accumulating in areas above 3,000 feet Friday. Gusty winds accompanied the snow.

Forecasts are for mostly sunny skies with temperatures in the mid-40s during the day Saturday.

Sunday’s high should be in the mid-50s.

There were no reports of anyone harmed as a result of Friday’s power outage on Mount Lemmon.

Ron Brown, manager of electric operations for Trico Electric Corp., which supplies power on the mountain, said the company has 430 customers on Mount Lemmon, including the TV and radio stations that have broadcast towers there.

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ROAD INFORMATION

Planning to go up to Mount Lemmon to play in the snow?

Call the Pima County Sheriff’s Department’s road condition line at 547-7510 for the latest road conditions and to find out if the road is open.

For Mount Lemmon Ski Valley call 576-1321 or for snow conditions call 576-1400.

Snow possible elsewhere in state

Shredding the slopes at Mount Lemmon Ski Valley

Mount Lemmon Ski Valley wasn’t open Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but it may open Friday.

“Think snow, think snow, think snow,” urged an upbeat message Wednesday on the answering machine at southern Arizona’s only ski slopes.

The number is 576-1400.

Forecasters at the National Weather Service were doing just that.

Wednesday morning, the Tucson office issued a winter storm watch to be in effect through Friday afternoon.

Storms Thursday and Friday were expected to drop snow down to 4,500 feet in the Santa Catalina Mountains, with a possibility of snow below that level in spots.

The sun was shining Wednesday, but the Mount Lemmon Fire District was bracing for a possible accumulation of more than 2 feet in coming days at 9,000 feet, said firefighter Dan Leade.

The department has been putting chains on truck tires and making sure equipment is ready for the usual spate of trees falling on power lines, he said.

Christmas travelers should expect gusting wind and blowing snow across much of the state, with the worst conditions in the White Mountains, the Weather Service said.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety issued a travel warning Wednesday urging drivers to use caution on slippery roads and in poor visibility.

The Weather Service is calling for a 50 percent chance of rain in Tucson on Christmas Day and 60 percent chance Christmas night and Friday. Temperatures will dip to the upper 30s Thursday night and into the 20s Saturday morning.

Temperatures will climb to the mid 50s for Christmas but only to the upper 40s to 50 Friday, the Weather Service said.

For a comprehensive look at Tucson-area weather, go to our online forecast.

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WINTER WEATHER DRIVING TIPS

• Plan your travel route, and check for the latest road and weather conditions.

• Carry food, water and other provisions (medication, etc).

• Bring a cell phone.

• Fill your gas tank.

• Slow down and increase following distances.

• Drive with headlights on day or night.

• Expect travel delays.

• Be aware some areas may be restricted to vehicles with snow chains or four-wheel drive.

Source: Arizona Department of Public Safety

This is the last weekend until spring for drives on seasonally closed roads on Mount Lemmon.

The Santa Catalina Ranger District closes a handful of forest roads to vehicles during winter months to protect the public and to prevent extra maintenance on the roads, which can be heavily damaged by vehicles during wet winter months.

This year, Marshall Gulch and Upper Oracle Control, Lower and Upper Bear Wallow, Bigelow, Incinerator Ridge and Organizational Ridge roads will close to vehicles Monday. The roads will close on Dec. 15 annually from now on, the forest service said in a news release.

“We have delayed closing the upper elevation roads on Mount Lemmon in the past until snow and ice make travel difficult. Often peoples’ vehicles become stranded,” said Larry Pratt, forest developed recreation project manager.

Use of the roads after snowfall also increases maintenance required in the spring and leads to poor conditions during warmer months, Pratt said.

Body found in rugged terrain Sunday by mountain bikers

The death of a man whose body was found by mountain bikers Sunday in rugged terrain north of Madera Canyon is a homicide, a Pima County sheriff’s detective said Tuesday.

Though it appears the unidentified man was shot, an autopsy set for Wednesday morning will determine how the man died, Detective Sgt. Jesus Lopez said.

The area where the man was found, about a mile north of the Santa Cruz County line, is known for drug and human smuggling, Lopez said.

He said a motive for the killing hasn’t been determined and there are no suspects in the case.

Lopez said the bicyclists, lacking a cell phone or GPS equipment, called the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department on Sunday evening when they were able to get to a telephone. Santa Cruz deputies delayed the search until Monday because it was getting dark when they received the call, and the body was in rugged, dangerous terrain, Lopez said.

When Santa Cruz deputies got to the body Monday, they determined it was in Pima County and called sheriff’s deputies there about 2 p.m., Lopez said.

Pima County deputies brought the body out of the mountains later Monday and began an investigation, Lopez said.

He said it appeared the man had been shot where he was found.

A ranger naturalist will lead birders though Oracle State Park Sunday, Arizona State Parks said in a news release.

Jerry Orr will meet those who want to take the tour at the ranch house at 8 a.m.

The walk, on park roads and trails, is expected to last until 10:30 or 11 a.m.

Admission is free and no reservation is required.

Bring sturdy shoes.

Meeting set for Thursday at 5151 E. Grant

The Pajarito Mountains in the Tumacacori Highlands.

Speak up Thursday if you want a say in how Coronado National Forest is run.

The U.S. Forest Service will hold a meeting that evening to take comments on a proposed revision of the forests’s management plan. Officials have collected some comments on the desired changes, according to a news release.

“Our planning team combined this input with the latest science, and it is now time for the public to review and refine the drafts of the revised forest plan components,” said forest planner Jennifer Ruyle.

The plan, in effect since 1986, covers road and facility construction, land uses, vegetation management and trail construction. The public may comment on draft revisions of desired conditions in the forest, land use zones and wilderness areas.

The meeting, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Sheraton Tucson Hotel and Suites, 5151 E. Grant Road, will offer brief presentations each hour followed by question-and-answer sessions.

They determine growth, location in federal park, forest

Buffelgrass can kill native saguaros and other plants by fueling wildfires or by shading out indigenous vegetation officials say.

Coronado National Forest and Saguaro National Park will soon have a new weapon to fight buffelgrass: high-tech maps from an aerial survey of the rugged Santa Catalina, Rincon and Tucson mountains.

The maps, made with Geographic Information System computers in a helicopter, will help managers at the two federal parks determine how much grass is there, said Coronado natural resource planner Rick Gerhart.

“We couldn’t really get a handle on it from the ground,” he said.

About 1,000 acres of the destructive African import had been mapped on foot in Saguaro, but the new maps will cover 56,000 acres of the park’s east and west districts, said Dana Backer, a restoration ecologist for the park.

About 68,000 acres of Coronado will be mapped, said Backer, who was dismayed but not surprised at the extent of the grass at Saguaro.

“It sort of confirmed my suspicion about how much was out there,” she said.

Buffelgrass coverage on preliminary maps of Saguaro exceeds what Gerhart had thought there would be, he said. “I suspect we will find the same thing on the (Coronado) Forest.”

After the maps are completed in the next few weeks, the forest and park will seek ways to incorporate them into control efforts.

It is likely too late to eradicate the grass, which can kill native saguaros and other plants by fueling wildfires or by shading out indigenous vegetation, Gerhart said. “But we need to be able to control it.”

Saguaro has been actively fighting the invader grass for more than 10 years, first by pulling it out by hand and later by spraying with herbicide, Backer said.

Large-scale spraying with herbicide on the forest would require an environmental impact statement, which would be done next year should Coronado pursue that remedy, Gerhart said.

Buffelgrass was imported to the U.S. from Africa in the 1930s for erosion control and cattle feed. Arizona declared the grass, which grows in clumps up to 4 feet tall, a noxious weed in 2005.

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Buffelgrass

Pennisetum ciliare

This native of Africa was introduced in the United States in the 1930s as cattle feed.

Arizona deemed the plant a noxious weed in 2005, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture still grows it in Texas to develop a cold-resistant strain. The dense grass shades out young saguaro cactuses and promotes fires desert plants cannot survive.

Though eradication efforts have been ongoing in southern Arizona, the problem is growing because buffelgrass can double every year.

Richard Brusca, director of research and conservation at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, predicts the fire threat from the grass will worsen each year for the foreseeable future.

Coronado National Forest will burn 1,700 acres near Peppersauce Campground, southeast of Oracle, as part of a prescribed burn from Monday to Friday.

The service wants to reduce brush and other fuels and improve wildlife habitat in Peppersauce Canyon, a news release said.

The burn will take place between whitetail deer hunting seasons. Travel may be restricted on Oracle Control Road between Peppersauce Campground and Nugget Canyon Road.

For more information call 388-8484.

Joggers enjoy the downhill run at Tumamoc Hill.

Pima County’s purchase of West Side landmark Tumamoc Hill moved one step closer Thursday when Tucson City Manager Mike Hein reaffirmed a landfill-maintenance deal the city has been offering since 2000.

In response to Hein’s memo – which offered to “indemnify the county” but provided no further details – Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry wrote a memo to his staff telling it to move forward with the purchase at a February auction.

Tumamoc Hill, west of “A” Mountain, has been a hiking magnet for decades and is home to a University of Arizona desert research lab.

The county has received a $3.5 million grant from the state to help acquire the hill at a state land auction and preserve it as open space.

Negotiations over who should accept liability for the Tumamoc landfill, used by the city and UA in the 1960s, had been an obstacle to the county’s acquisition of the property from the Arizona State Land Department for at least the last eight years.

Huckelberry said Thursday he understood Hein’s memo to say that under no circumstances would the county be responsible for the landfill and that between now and the auction date, the county would have at least one legal agreement relieving it of responsibility.

The county hopes the city will sign a land-transfer agreement to take ownership of the landfill as well as sign an indemnity agreement further clearing the county of any landfill-related burden, Huckelberry said.

Huckelberry’s decision to move forward with the auction is testimony to the county’s intention to buy the land, which Board of Supervisors Chairman Richard Elías has called a “community icon.”

City and council officials hope that because of the economic downturn the land will be less attractive to developers, who also could bid at the auction.

“I think now is the time,” said City Councilwoman Regina Romero, who is a regular Tumamoc hiker and supporter of the purchase. She put a discussion of the city-county agreement on the council’s Tuesday agenda.

The county received the $3.5 million matching-funds grant from the state in September to acquire the hill for open-land purposes, said Jay Ziemann, legislative liaison for Arizona State Parks. That will be combined with the county’s 2004 open space bond money.

And if the county is outbid, “we’ll have just one more tool in our belt,” Huckelberry said, which is condemnation, or seizure of private property for a public purpose.

Alexander Wanamaker

A University of Arizona student reported missing on a hike by a friend since Monday was found unharmed, camping in Catalina State Park, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said.

Searchers found Alexander Wanamaker, 22, at noon Thursday, Deputy Dawn Barkman said.

“What I really want to do is thank God my son is back,” Peter Wanamaker, his father, said.

“He’s resting right now at his cousin’s house – it was closer. He’s asleep. He needs some rest.”

It turned out that Wanamaker was on a camping trip and there may have been some miscommunication with his family and a friend.

“We didn’t know the period of time he was intending to go,” Peter Wanamaker said. “He didn’t have much camping gear. He knows what he’s doing. There was a lack of communication.

“We’d like to thank everybody for their help: all the searchers, all the people who prayed for him. We’re very happy to have him back. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone.”

Barkman said searchers looked for Wanamaker beginning at 2 p.m. Tuesday and again on Wednesday. About a dozen searchers resumed the hunt for Wanamaker Thursday morning between 8:30 and 9.

She said the man was found by searchers calling out for him near the Montrose Canyon area.

“On Tuesday, he apparently went up to the Romero Pools area and then to Romero Pass before returning to the 3,200-foot level near the Montrose Canyon area,” she said.

“He was drinking stream water and did not have food to sustain him for very long – apparently his choice,” Barkman said in a news release.

The young man raised concerns when he didn’t return from what others presumed was a Monday hike.

His father said, “He had never gone missing before. This isn’t like him.”

A friend who dropped Wanamaker off about noon Monday at the Romero trail head at the park in Oro Valley said he wasn’t prepared for inclement weather, Barkman said.

Temperatures in the area where he hiked hovered in the mid- to high 30s this week, said Mic Sherwood, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tucson. Wednesday’s overnight low was 34 degrees.

“He’s an experienced hiker, he’s very athletic, but he was not prepared or even carrying any supplies to keep from the cold at night,” his father said Wednesday.

On Wednesday and Thursday, searchers included sheriff’s deputies, and members of the Sheriff’s Mounted Posse, the Southern Arizona Search and Rescue Association, and Southwest Rescue Dogs.

Barkman said Wanamaker hiked out of the area.

By David L. Teibel, Sheryl Kornman

Sheriff’s deputies and rescue workers helped a 60-year-old Tucson woman get out of Sabino Canyon Thursday evening after she fell and suffered a knee injury, a spokeswoman said.

Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Deputy Dawn Barkman said the woman was on a group outing and fell around 2 p.m. about a mile past Seven Falls.

Southern Arizona Rescue Association volunteers and two deputies spent more than five hours on their rescue efforts, carrying the woman to an ambulance and taking her to Tucson Medical Center by about 8 p.m.

Barkman didn’t know what caused the fall.

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department is looking for a 22-year-old hiker missing in the Catalina State Park area since Monday.

Alexander Wanamaker, a University of Arizona student, is 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighs 175 pounds and has blond hair and blue eyes, sheriff’s Deputy Dawn Barkman said Wednesday in a news release.

He was wearing a white poncho with “Corona” on the back and long pants, and carried a black backpack.

A friend who dropped Wanamaker off at noon Monday at the Romero trailhead in the park in Oro Valley said the hiker wasn’t prepared for inclement weather, Barkman said.

“He’s an experienced hiker, he’s very athletic, but he was not prepared or even carrying any supplies to keep from the cold at night,” the hiker’s father, Peter Wanamaker, said.

According to the National Weather Service, overnight lows the past few days in the Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area the trail crosses have been in the upper 30s.

“He had never gone missing before. This isn’t like him,” the father said.

The Sheriff’s Mounted Posse, Southwest Rescue Dogs and Southern Arizona Search and Rescue are also looking for Wanamaker.

He is a direct descendant of Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of Russia’s most prominent 20th-century composers, according to an article in the Arizona Daily Star.

Anyone with information is asked to call 911.

Fernanda Echávarri contributed to this article.