New Year, New Challenge

It is good to start the year with a new challenge.  Picacho Peak is a nice hike with some rolling hills to start with.  I have tried to make it all the way to the top a few times now.

That is about 3.1 miles according to the trail map.  It starts getting steep at about 2 miles and I have made it about that far several times.  They have steps in some places, but it is still quite a workout.

It was a great day for a hike and I was able to talk my youngest son and my Dad into joining me.  It was nice and sunny but with a breeze that kept it from getting too warm.  It is a bit bleak in the desert with little vegetation save some the cactus.   I can't wait to go back there again later in the spring after we have gotten some rain and there are some flowers blooming.

Well, we tried, but we only made it about 2.1 miles before we decided to turn back.  The altitude where we turned around was over 600 feet higher than where we parked, but there was a lot more up and down which left us pretty wiped out.   We decided to try it again in a couple months and get an earlier start to see if we can make it all the way to the top.

So how did you start out 2010?  Any New Years Resolutions? 

Superstition Mountains

A few weeks ago my youngest son and I went out to the mountains for a little hike. Of course I had my camera with me and he had agreed to not push the pace too hard for me so I could take a few pictures. I thought "a few" was vague enough. After all, I took about 400 pictures in just a few hours at Ironman Arizona in November. Some of my favorites from that race and from SOMA a month before can be found in the "The Race in On" gallery.

We had decided to go for an afternoon hike since we were going to be on the West side of the mountain. It was a great day for a hike, no rain and not too hot. It was just warm enough that we were happy to have brought our water bottles with us.

Besides the mountains that seemed to be way off in the distance at first, the great Saguaro cactii all around, there was also some wildlife out and about. I saw a number of birds (come back soon, I am still working on identifying some of them and will have another post up in a few days) including a few really colorful hummingbirds.

The trail was pretty easy for the first mile or so, then started to climb. We turned around at about the point where this next picture was taken. You can see how much steeper the climb got at that point.

We had a great day and managed to get about 4 miles of hiking between stopping for pictures. That included a total of about 1500 feet of climbing. We were tired, but it was a good tired when we got back to the car. As we were driving away, I spotted a coyote cross the road just ahead of us, but he was too quick and by the time I stopped the car, he was out of range for a good picture.

What do you think? Have you had any fun outings recently? Any suggestions for other Arizona hikes? We are thinking about Picacho Peak in a few weeks, wanna join us? Let me know in the comments or head over to Twitter and give me a shout. Stay tuned for some of the bird photos I took that day, coming soon. I promise.

In the meantime, feel free to visit my main photography page and bookmark it. From there, you can jump to my photo galleries by clicking almost any of the photos or links in the left column. Thanks for stopping by. Remember "Take nothing but memories and leave nothing but comments."