TUCSON, Ariz. — As part of our summer series, it's time for another One Tank Trip, where we take you to local places on much less than a tank of gas.
This time around, we're taking you to the east side of town for a ride on the Crawler at Sabino Canyon.
"Well, the tour is great," said Sabino Canyon Crawler Manager Chris Garcia. Clearly, he'll tell it like it is. He manages the fully electric shuttle, that takes you on a 7.4 mile round trip into Sabino Canyon. This time of year, it's everyday on the hour. During peak season, it's every 30 minutes. They're only closed on Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.
"You have the choice to hike," Garcia explained. "You can get off at the top, hike down as far as you want. There's tons of trails at the top that you can take off on, which a lot of people choose to ride the shuttle to get up to the top so that they can take off hiking. And they hike the whole day and catch the last shuttle coming out."
Each seat on the Crawler comes with headphones, so you can listen to an audio tour, all the way to the end and back.
"It runs off a GPS," Garcia said. "So as you're going up, it triggers in that area and talks about that certain area, and as you keep going, it announces every stop, so that everybody knows what stop you're at."
And if you're listening, you'll definitely learn something. Arguably the most surprising moment in the tour, was this line: "Strangest of all, you might see tiny freshwater jellyfish in these pools. They are harmless to humans..."
Along the nine stops, you'll get the scoop on picnic tables, bathrooms, the creeks where sometimes you can swim, all the while getting the story behind what you're seeing.
"First of all, the views, can't describe them." said Alex Saucedo, who's a driver for the Crawler, talking about his favorite part of the ride. "Our animals that are here, cardinals, we have coatimundis. You know, our roadrunners are fantastic. Just the sculpture of a canyon is beautiful."
He says the Crawler is also an experience everyone can enjoy.
"Especially for those that can't really walk no more," he said. "This is the perfect vehicle for them so they can still get out and look at nature."
For the more active passengers, like cousins Dexter and Caleb Bentley who often visit from out of town, it's all about the drop-offs to adventure when the rain fills up the pools. As of this week, the monsoon storms have been enough to cause some little rivers.
"It's a little while down the road," said Caleb, talking about his favorite part of the tour. "It has this really big waterfall."
"It's behind stop eight," Dexter added.
On top of the endless saguaros and natural beauty you'll see, there's a good chance you'll run into critters.
Saucedo says the craziest thing he's ever seen was a bighorn sheep, on bridge number three.
"I had people yelling at me," he recalled. "So I thought I dropped somebody. I stopped, there he is standing at full attention. The other one was our night tours. We have animals everywhere."
The Night Crawler on Saturdays at 7:30pm, is also a great way to avoid the daytime heat.
"We have some black lights that we carry so we can try to light up scorpions," Garcia explained. "The drivers carry them, and we let the kids have fun with them too. We'll shut all the lights off so you can actually see how dark it is."
When we tagged along for a night tour, sure enough we got to see some glowing scorpions.
So set aside at least an hour for the daytime ride, or a couple hours for the night ride. Be sure to bring a water bottle, and get ready to have some fun. You'll definitely be in good hands. The people who run the Crawler are the ones behind all of the creature comforts during your trip to Sabino Canyon. They've set up all the benches on either sides of the creeks, so if you have to take your shoes off to walk across the water, you have a place to sit.
They also have big headphones, rather than the earbuds, in case you use a hearing aid and would still like to hear the audio tour. If you need a written copy, they also offer that in a binder.
Tickets for the crawler are $15 for adults, $8 for kids. To buy tickets, you can go to sabinocanyoncrawler.com.
From where KGUN 9 is on the east side of town, it's a six mile drive to Sabino Canyon. Regardless of your gas millage, that should take you less than a gallon of gas, so we'll call it $3.
Claire Graham is an anchor and reporter for KGUN 9. She grew up in Tucson and graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in musical theatre. Claire spent a decade in Washington state, where she worked in journalism, met her husband and welcomed their baby boy, before moving back home. Share your story ideas and important issues with Claire by emailing claire.graham@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and X.
