Hiking, web development, best practices, and general awesomeness
On the southern edge of the Mazatzal Wilderness is a little hiking loop made up of access roads, the Arizona Trail, and an old ranching single-track on top of Black Ridge. I've been wanting to take the kids on this loop for a while and, once I felt confident in their endurance, we headed out on a…
Fire restrictions for Kaibab Forest would kick in on Friday, making campfires illegal, so I drove the kids up on Thursday after work and we found a small site off of FR 150, south of Williams, and after quickly setting up camp we made our classic hot dogs over a small, crackling fire. It was a…
Early on a weekday morning the kids and I pulled into the Derrick Trailhead near Christopher Creek, one of only three vehicles parked in the normally busy lot. Our first destination, Horton Creek Trail, is a popular hiking trail, and I hoped that the combination of an early start and weekday timing…
In my search to explore new areas in Arizona for kid-friendly hikes, especially to escape the summer heat of the Phoenix area, Prescott eventually bubbled up as a possibility. I've driven past these lands a few times and never given it serious consideration, more interested in the destinations…
Driving west of Phoenix can be a dreadfully boring endeavor. The desert is flat and hot, the highways are straight for miles, and there are few smatterings of interesting rocky formations in the distant haze. I've driven this way a few times on the way to Quartzite, where my grandparents live and…
The day after the challenging and difficult, yet ultimately relaxing and recharging, solo adventure to Deadman Falls, my kids were driving me nuts. They had buckets of pent-up energy, nagging me while I clung to my coffee like a drowning man. Katie was fed up with them after a long Saturday alone so…
Numerous creeks fight their way through the Mogollon Rim, draining south and west towards the desert lowlands of Phoenix. One of these, Wet Beaver Creek, is not only protected by a wilderness boundary, but it also once supported a thriving native population whose ruins you can still visit today. On…
A full day and night of rain had left the sky gray, the air wet, and the desert damp. I waited a few hours to confirm that the precipitation was cleared before taking the kids out to Willow Canyon Trailhead for a hike in the Goldfield range. The parking lot had a half-dozen cars and a single RV,…
Driving up Hewitt Canyon Road with three anxious kids was an exercise in patience. First there was the traffic to deal with along the first few miles, the ORVs and timid explorers, who clogged up the trail with parked vehicles; then the bumpy travel over exposed rocks on the bottom of Hewitt Canyon…
Snaking along the base of Picketpost Mountain, Arnett Creek has dug out a little canyon that holds onto a semi-reliable trickle of water and lush riparian environment. The creek pulls from the southern end of Apache Leap, picking up leftover tributaries that Queen Creek missed, before itself meeting…