#8: [14-Oct-18]

#7: [20-Nov-07]

#5: [10-Feb-06]

#3: [26-Nov-04]

#2: [17-Mar-04]

#4: [20-Mar-03]

#1: [27-Nov-98]

18-Nov-2006 -- My wife Beth and I spent an enjoyable weekend camping near Saguaro National Park (west unit) west of Tucson. Our agenda for this weekend was a hike up Keystone Peak in the Sierrita Mountains, and - time and daylight permitting - a visit to N32, W111. Its location so close to a major interstate made this confluence seem like easy work.

Our hike up Keystone went well but we didn't egress until sunset, so we scratched the confluence visit until early the next morning. As others have ably noted on this site, this is an easily-visited confluence, a short walk off of Pime Mine Road (Exit 80 I-19) on Asarco Mine property about 15 miles south of Tucson. (Interstate-19 is the only interstate in the United States marked off in kilometers.)

We parked close to the 111th meridian on Pima Mine Road. Beth decided against hiking out to the actual spot upon seeing the fencing, so I went alone. I scooted under some barbed-wire fencing, crossed railroad tracks and worked my way around brush and various junk on the ground to get to the spot, which I did in less than 5 minutes.

The area is not particularly pretty, dominated by a huge open-pit mine bulwark to the south (south photo). The east photo shows some Asarco buildings. North photo shows general brush and the west photo (the nicest, in my opinion) shows a nice big saguaro. I also took a photo of the general site, where a pile of rocks and glass and crud seemed to mark the confluence. The spot seems to sit on a road of some sort and the marker seems to have been crushed accordingly. A local steer also marked the spot as cows so often do. My GPS danced a bit so I selected the one closest to all zeroes.

Anyway, the whole excursion took less than 10 minutes. The weather was beautiful and it was fun to break my confluence drought of almost 6 months. Even though Beth sat in the car, I figure she was within the 100m so I give her this one, too.