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| Towards The East |
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| Typical Trail |
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| Cactus Ready to Bloom |
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| Always Cactus |
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| Desert and Mountain View |
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| 6:20 |
Up early, 5:30, ready to head back to see our grandchildren in Kansas City. We have to be at Claire and Henry's about 9:00, so we can get to the airport about 9:45, our plane leaves at 11:40. Not a lot to do since we packed last night, just put the bags in the car and go. We are going to miss an early morning hike but are happy to have had nine great days of hiking anyways. The sun has not risen yet, the mountains blots on the skyline, the wind whistling through the trees, the songs of a couple of different birds. No joggers or walkers yet on the trail just out side Dot's backyard.
We decided to walk Lost Dog Wash again, mainly because it's all mountains, no houses like yesterday's hike on Quartz Trail. We took this walk this past Saturday, a hot, sweaty day for a hike, and we made it in three hours. This time we walked the other way, six miles, and it took just about three hours. It was a glorious morning, what else around here, and we started up the mountain at 7:45, with only two or three other cars in the lot. There was a nice breeze as we hiked up a section of Ringtail, which connects with Old Jeep, which connects with Lost Dog (got it) almost making me wish I had brought along my fleece. But soon enough, it warmed up, the sun bright in the sky, the wind blocked by a mountain. The vistas along this hike are some of the best and there are very few people on the trails early, though as we were ascending we did see more. We can look for what seems like fifty miles, south mostly, beyond Phoenix and east beyond Mesa. Just huge blocks of mountains, usually green or gray because of the shade, contrast with the vastness of the flat desert. The trail was up hill most of the first half hour but not much of a grade, so it was easy going. We love the way we wind up and down the sides of the mountain, into a gulch, usually rocky because of a dry stream, then back up a winding path, often one off in the distance, a half more or so, which looks daunting at the time we view it but soon enough, we are hiking easily. We made it to the Taliesin Overview in just one and a half hours and it took us another one and a half to wind down, back to the 124th Street Access Trail Head. We did take a off shoot of the Lost Dog, the Ascanzi Shoot, which made our hike a bit longer, as we wound around the Pavilion, coming in from the other side. It was our last hike here in Scottsdale for awhile but it was a good one. Evie figured out we have hiked just about fifty miles in the past nine days, averaging 5.5 miles a hike.
One of the volunteers at the Pavilion mentioned that they would be opening a new section of the Mc Dowell Sonoran Preserve to the public next September or October, when the Pavilion is done. It will be more of a drive but fun to explore some new trails. We got home about 11:00 and Claire and her daughter in law, Liz, and her baby, Grace, came over for a couple of hours. So we sat around playing with the baby, Grace, fighting over who gets to hold her. They stayed for lunch and left about 2:00.
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| Oma Claire |
It was actually a cool day for Scottsdale, 75º at 3:30 in the afternoon, and I checked Chautauqua and it was almost as warm, 73º. It's sounds like it's heating up next week in Scottsdale, getting colder at the lake. Evie and I went off to REI since I was interested in seeing what kinds of hiking gear they had. It was an amazing assortment of everything a camper, hiker, runner, or biker would need. The only problem, everything was two or three times more than I wanted to spend. They even had men's yoga wear, a pair of shorts for fifty, a sleeveless tee (man, would I look good in that) for forty. I passed.
We got home around 5:30 and Dot asked if we wanted to go out to dinner at George's the local Chinese Restaurant we always go to and asked Claire, Henry, their daughter in law and baby along. We had a great meal, lots of good food and even Henry enjoyed it, despite having spent the past week in China, being stuffed with good food three times a day. We got home around 8:00 and Evie and I packed for our trip tomorrow, and we then relaxed and watched the end of American Idol with Dot. We were tired and went to bed around 9:30.
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