Hiking, web development, best practices, and general awesomeness
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…
The thermometer on the car read 112 when I stepped out into the parking lot in Apache Junction. Hot air rushed over me, feeling more like an oven than not, and I took an unsteady breath in. I was about to tackle a hike that I probably should not in temperatures that I probably should avoid and I 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…
Bleary-eyed we stumbled along the rocky path to Siphon Draw. Chris and I had agreed to an early start for this hike thinking that we'd be familiar enough with the trail to Flatiron to tackle it in the dark. Knowing the general landscape of the trail does not stop you from tripping over railroad ties…
Dim light seeped in from the east over the ridge, just enough to highlight the impressive rocky peaks of the Superstition Mountains. Everything else was dark. Our trail was dark, the cacti surrounding us was dark, and the mid-sized rocks that waited to roll under our ankles were dark. We carefully…
After a few city hikes in Phoenix I needed a good challenge. Camelback and Piestewa, each steep thousand-foot-plus climbs, had been good warmups. I needed something to make me sweat, something that I test my limits against. Flatiron, a rock formation high above Siphon Draw, looked like it would do…