So Stan and I went hiking yesterday. It was a somewhat chilly but beautiful day and I was excited for our adventure. We decided to drive up a canyon here called Hobble Creek Canyon and then up Squaw Peak Trail. The great thing about being the one with the camera is that you get to take pictures of every body else...i.e. not you. :)
The whole mountain was absolutely gorgeous and green, especially for an Arizona girl, I can never get over the green.
We had been up the same canyon last fall, it was one of the first dates we went on last fall. I took another picture about the same place yesterday as I did last fall:
We parked the car and headed up toward Corral Peak (northish) along the rim of the mountain. It was quite the steep hike there at the beginning and we may have had to stop a number of times because I needed to gasp for air, but the view was absolutely amazing. We traveled along a "trail" at the beginning that seemed to be frequented by deer as evidenced by the many random piles of droppings. As we approached the first little peak, the trail was no longer and we traveled along in uncharted territory.  |
| (Notice the clouds behind Stan...those are going to be important in the rest of this story...) |
We could tell it was windy because of the way the clouds were moving but we had no idea what we were in for. Upward we went and then we found ourselves in this...
(I recognize I look like a fool in this video and the wind makes it so you can't hear half the things I said...this is what you're supposed to know from the video: 1) it was snowing. that's why I looked at the sky half of the video to show that... 2) it was super cold. 3) we are awesome hard core. 4) ignore anything else you might have learned from the video)
So going up was an adventure, and then we began to come down. Seeing as we were in a cloud, it was kind of hard to tell what was the best way to go down, and we wanted to spice things up a bit and not go back the same way we came, so we left our safe ridge line.
Before I continue with the descent story, I'd like to share a few lessons learned.
I learned yesterday that:
1) I should not wear my chacos hiking in May, it may snow and my toes will freeze. Luckily for me, Stan is wonderful and donated his socks so that I wouldn't lose my toes. And I didn't. Halfway down the mountain, the feeling came back.
2) My chacos have 0 traction. Zero. Maybe it's because they are seven years old and should be retired. And I should buy new ones :)
3) I should not wear my chacos when hiking with Stan because we'll probably end up having a crazy experience.
So down the mountain we went. We had hoped that by travelling down the mountain some we could get ourselves out of the cloud, not so. The snow was sticking on the ground and everything was becoming very wet. Pretty much, it only got more awesome and hard core from there. Stan led the way, and I slid along behind. More like slipped along behind. The good news is that we got down safely, though dirty and wet we (more me than he) were. The end of the hike was absolutely gorgeous because we found ourselves in these luscious woods. The rain had made them even more beautiful I'm sure.
I loved every minute of our adventure :) Not only were the views (the ones we could see before the clouds...) absolutely beautiful, but there were lots of beautiful flowers and stuff. 'Twas a wonderful time :)
