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It was weird to see sunlight on the hills around Peralta Trailhead. Chris and I had been to here several times before, using the trailhead as an access to the southern lands of the Superstition Wilderness, and each time had been hours before sunrise. Today I stood alone and gazed up the steep,…
This was the second time my parents were visiting us down in Arizona. The first time had been a few weeks after Thomas was born and we spent most of the time fawning over the newborn and getting things done around the house. We did fit in a quick hike over to the San Tan Regional Park, though it was…
Afternoon hikes in Phoenix are tricky things. On one hand I'm still working on Eastern time, which means that most days I'm done with work between 2 and 3 in the afternoon. That leaves me with several hours of daylight for a short hike during the work week. However, I'm in a desert. Hiking under the…
Chris and I met Kirsty at a small dirt parking lot off of Bell Road in Scottsdale. It wasn't terribly early, maybe thirty minutes before the sunrise, and the morning light was just starting to lighten the cloudy sky. There was a decent chance of rain today which worried all of us. There are few…
My topo map was an old one, dating back to the '80s. As I slowly walked along Cavalry Trail in the Superstitions I gazed over it. This trail headed southeast within a little valley for about a mile before turning sharp south over Red Hills and looping back west along Needle to Boulder Canyon. There…
No moon lit the dark night sky over the Superstition Wilderness trailhead. I stepped away from the parking lot alone with only a meager headlamp to guide me to Garden Valley. Hiking in the dark had become standard fare for long days in the desert, since both Chris and I were willing to wake up and…
Noah and I pulled into the well maintained parking lot a bit frazzled. It had been a long drive to get here, longer than he was used to, and the little guy was rearing to get out. We were north of Scottsdale and almost a full hour away from our house. I hoped it would be worth the drive. Today was…
Pink-tinted daylight spread over the low desert hills in the predawn. It was early, though not pre-dawn early, when Noah and I got out of the car and stepped into cool air. I wore shorts and a t-shirt - he wore pants, jacket, mittens and hat. I'd be carrying my son some six miles today and would…
Standing like a tall, lonely guard of the southwest Superstition Wilderness is the impressive Weaver's Needle. This old volcanic shaft rises over a thousand feet from the surrounding desert, the bottom half steep piles of rubble and the top sheer cliffs. Chris and I had seen the formation from…
Over the years I've thrown around the term 'Death March' a few times in reference to past hikes. The term has some real negative connotations in a historical light, though it is also used to describe a project management antipattern and a Grand Canyon Rim to Rim (to Rim). I use it to describe a…