Catalina Highway - Tourism

Tourism

The Catalina Highway provides the only paved access to attractions on Mount Lemmon and the Santa Catalina Mountains, and has become a popular destination for tourism in the region. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the Catalina Highway is traveled over by more than one million visitors every year. Among the many recreational opportunities in the Coronado National Forest, through which the highway travels, are numerous campgrounds and picnic sites, hiking trails, and scenic views. The Mount Lemmon Ski Valley, located at the summit of the highway, operates a ski slope during the winter months and remains open during the summer, offering summer "sky rides" on the ski lift. It is billed as the southernmost ski resort in the continental United States.

In addition to the numerous recreational activities the highway offers access to, the highway's status as a Scenic Drive is a draw in and of itself. The Forest Service describes the drive as a biological and ecological tour from Mexico to Canada in only 27 miles. Over the length of the drive, visitors will encounter saguaro cacti, mesquite trees, and cholla plants of the Sonoran Desert, pass through stands of oak, juniper, and pinyon pine, enter pine forests and then finally stands of fir and aspen on the cooler, north-facing slopes at the end of the highway.

The scenic vistas afforded along the highway, along with the terrain, make it a common destination for leisure travel and motorcycling. The route is also popular with bicycling enthusiasts, providing a significant challenge of skill. Local cycling organizations regularly organize rides consisting of 200 or more riders along the highway to the summit of the mountain.

October 2010 saw the inaugural running of the Mount Lemmon Marathon which saw nearly 800 participants finish the race from near the start of the highway up to Summerhaven.