Good morning roomie, I noticed you were gone quite a bit last week, came home unshowered and were rambling a lot about some sort of TEST. Care to explain?

Well as a dog that has had two baths in his entire life I don’t think you are in a position to comment on being unshowered, but I am happy you noticed I was gone. Last week I completed a route I am calling the Tucson Eastern Skyline Traverse, aka the T.E.S.T. The route connects two mountain ranges and most of the peaks you see when looking east from Tucson.

Neat, did you meet any dogs along the way?

The route starts in Saguaro National Park East where dogs are not allowed so luckily I didn’t see any on the first 30 miles, in fact I only saw three people on that section, but I did see a few near Molino Basin walking the Arizona Trail.

Crazy man describes Tucson Eastern Skyline Traverse to mountain biker

I hope you gave them your best sniff. What makes this route unique and why should people do it?

What I like about the T.E.S.T is it has a great blend of wilderness trails as well as trails accessible via Forest Service roads and Mt Lemmon Highway. Additionally to make these connections requires a bit of off trail route finding and some scrambling to access Airmen Peak. This makes the route a great option for fastest known time attempts but also makes it a great hybrid backpacking followed by slack packing trip.

What do you mean by hybrid backpacking followed by slackpacking?

The first part of the route has no support opportunities so a traditional backpacking or long day running is required to make it through the National Park, but the second part could be supported by the van. For example, I could backpack through the park and meet you at Tanque Verde Falls then we could make our way through the rest of the trip together, Another plus side is I could switch to a smaller pack and just camp in the van while working our way through the Santa Catalina peaks.

Well that sounds like a nice adventure. Where can people learn about the T.E.S.T?

People can learn about the Tucson Eastern Skyline Traverse by visiting: https://fastestknowntime.com/route/tucson-eastern-skyline-traverse they can also email us at info@milosadventurerentals.com while the route doesn’t require a van, it sure does make it nice.