Hiking, web development, best practices, and general awesomeness
Arizona's 2019 winter was, to say the least, enjoyable. There were a number of days that showered the Phoenix valley and sprinkled white snow in the higher elevations. After one such wet event I decided to take the kids for a hike - not an epic snow hike, like our adventure in the Mazatzals, but…
A few months ago I had a unique opportunity - an entire weekday with Noah. Usually he's at school or I have work or I'm stuck with all three kids. On this day, this random holiday in January, it was just Noah and I, and there was only one hike on my mind. It was time to take my five year old son to…
On New Year's Eve a storm rolled across central Arizona. In Phoenix, the valley of the sun, we saw intermittent rain under gloomy skies, though the mountains surrounding our valley were dusted by a more wintery mix. When I woke up on the new year and saw white on the upper portions of Superstition…
Waking about an hour before sunrise, I was initially slow moving under the dark sky. As soon as I was dressed and heard the pitter-patter of raindrops on my undersized tarp I sped up, though, worried about my quilt and other gear getting wet. Once everything was protected I began making breakfast,…
Bull Spring Trail passes through three drainage basins after it leaves the AZT. With each basin it swings north to avoid losing too much elevation, though there is always some drop, and then it crosses a rocky bed before climbing up the other side. The first one is Red Metal Canyon and it looked…
This morning started like so many of my Mazatzal adventures: pitch-black sky, frigid air, and a stumbling gait towards semi-familiar lands. There was something different about it, something that I tried to ignore, lest I jinx the whole outing. If I succeeded in this overnight loop then I'd finish my…
Noah and Thomas have hiked the Superstition Wilderness over a dozen times now, though most of our visits have been to the north end. First Water Ranch, Hackberry, Garden Valley, and even Siphon Draw are all located off of the Apache Trail. There's a lot of cool stuff on the south side that we…
Crisp November air swam around me, filling my chest with each breath and nipping sharply at my nose. It felt delightful to be cold on an Arizona hike, even if that had meant waking up shortly after midnight and driving for hours in the dark, all to get a predawn start in low temperatures. My long…
Siphon Draw is one of the first areas I explored in Arizona. After that initial visit I began to treat the (normally dry) waterfall as a milepost to the more challenging Flatiron and ridgeline hikes beyond, a mere marker on more epic adventures, with the exception of one time when I carried…
Ten miles sat between me and the trailhead as I began my descent from the unplanned bivouac site. My original plan, which had started yesterday, was to do the Midnight Mesa Loop, a 36 mile adventure in the central Mazatzal Wilderness, in a single day, and I would have made it if it wasn't for some…