Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area

Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area is a 56,430-acre wilderness within the Coronado National Forest, in the Santa Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, Arizona. Established in 1978, it ranges in elevation from 2,800 to over 9,100 feet, supporting saguaro and other desert plants at lower elevations, mountain mahogany, juniper and pinyon pine at mid-level, and fir and aspen forest above 8,000 feet. The area was created chiefly to protect the desert bighorn sheep of Pusch Ridge, one of Arizona's last remaining populations, which nonetheless declined sharply as residential and commercial development spread around the Santa Catalina Mountains in Oro Valley and the Catalina Foothills, and sightings had nearly ceased by the early 2010s. In November 2013, 31 adult bighorn sheep were reintroduced to the area, and in February 2014 an Arizona Game and Fish Department official spotted two lambs, the first Catalina-born desert bighorn sheep in nearly 25 years. The Santa Catalina Mountains' core is a dome of Triassic Catalina granite, with the range's south face formed of Catalina gneiss banded with white quartzite, folded into a steep anticline separated from the rest of the range by a series of valleys.

Where it is

Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area is a natural landmark near Santa Catalina Mountains, in Pima County. It is one of the natural landmarks in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.

How this ranking was reached

No official visitor count is published for Pusch Ridge Wilderness Area, so its score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. That is why the medium confidence above is not higher. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.

Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.

Sources

• Public interest: Wikimedia pageviews (en.wikipedia, human traffic), 2024
• Coordinates and designations: Wikivoyage(opens in a new tab)
• County: U.S. Census geography via FCC Area API, resolved from coordinates
• Official site: http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/coronado/recarea/?recid=25692(opens in a new tab)

Record last verified 2026-08-12.