Box Canyon Road

Box Canyon is a visual delight, assuming you like shelf roads, mountain views, and distant vistas. The road cuts across the ruggedly handsome Santa Rita Mountains via Box Canyon's deep pass before breaking out with long views across Green Valley and the distant Twin Buttes Copper Mine. The slopes in the pass are thick with spindly ocotillo cacti. Called "fire sticks" by natives, the long branches of the ocotillo lay gray and dormant much of the time before quickly and randomly growing small green leaves on the branches and firey red blossoms at the top. Much of the trail is in the vast Coronado National Forest, with the eastern end on Arizona State Trust Land set aside as the Santa Rita Experimental Range and Wildlife Area.

The trail ends on the paved Madera Canyon Road, a lovely drive and a bird-watcher's favorite.