Kitt Peak - Back From The Brink
First Covid, then the Contreras Fire
Kitt Peak National Observatory was founded in 1958, and is located 55 miles west of Tucson on the Tohono O'odham Reservation. With more than twenty optical and two radio telescopes, it is one of the largest gatherings of astronomical instruments in the northern hemisphere.
Covid closed it to the public in March 2020, with the Tohono O'odham Nation particularly hard hit. And in June 2022, it was almost lost to a lightning sparked fire which overran the summit on Friday, June 17. Four non-scientific buildings were lost.
After the arduous tasks of restoring power and cleaning the ash off of all the delicate instruments, the observatory started "seeing the sky" and collecting data once again by the end of October 2022. The road and the facility, however, remained closed to the public. The roadway guardrails were severely damaged by the fire and AZDOT had to replace most of them before the road could be reopened. Route 386 dead ends at the observatory, so it was not really a high priority job...the road reopened four days ago.
Let's go!
Nigel's in for some maintenance; the Jag F-Pace is his stand in. Not bad...comfortable, quiet, reasonably quick, even does the Swanson Road "dip and climb" dirt section with no problem, which surprised me.
Doubt we'd buy one though...for the same money, would probably go for a Defender 90. That said, would really like to kick that can down the road for as many years as possible! 😂
Yup, nothing up there, but the sign gets a sticker. 😎
It really IS open...this was taken about 8:30 am; the road "officially" opens at 9. Allegedly.
Back in March 2020, it really was closed because of the pandemic.
The road is in decent shape...dirty, not a lot of grip, lots of tar snakes and the occasional fallen rock. Best to cruise a bit...
You can see the remnants of the fire.
Has greened up nicely.
Almost the same vantage point, with the fire approaching.
Relive 'Kitt Peak Post Fire'
A nice morning, and I'm glad she's back!
