Green Mountain Trail

Description:

• The Green Mountain Trail leads from a trailhead at the San Pedro Vista on the Catalina Highway to the General Hitchcock Campground. Good views start as soon as you step out of your car here where the Galiuro Mountains, Mount Graham and the wide San Pedro River Valley are framed by the pines and firs that cling to the slope below the overlook.

  The trail is located on the east side of the parking area behind a metal trailhead sign. Finding it can be a bit tough due to the large number of well-worn pathways that radiate from the parking area, but if you follow a line of rough rock steps up the slope you'll find that all the routes rejoin in a short distance into a well defined trail that turns toward the panorama. Good views continue for some time as the trail bends around an exposed point.

  About a third of a mile from the trailhead, the Brush Corral Trail #19 branches off on its 3,200 foot dive down the mountain's east side. The Green Mountain Trail drops gradually through thick forests out and around a major ridge to a junction with the Shortcut Trail, which provides a little used and hard to follow connecting route to the Brush Corral Trail. From this point the Green Mountain Trail climbs up and over Bear Saddle at the head of Bear Canyon, but not before passing another junction with another side trail, the Maverick Spring Trail, which leads less than half a mile to a picturesque natural seep. This spring usually has water in it and is located in an area that is quite lush.

  From Bear Saddle, the trail drops down into Bear Canyon through forests of ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir and Arizona cypress. After crossing usually dry Bear Creek a number of times, it ends in the General Hitchcock campground at the parking lot.