March 2011: Wind Cave Trail and Spook Hill

Wind Cave Trail is in Usery Mountain Regional Park, which is run by Maricopa County.  It is between north Mesa and Apache Junction, on the edge of Tonto National Forest.  Wind Cave Trail is a popular trail and is very pretty.  It goes along a flat area with a lot of saguaros and then up to the top of a ridge.  Very pretty and a nice climb.

Spook Hill is just a little walk up a little hill.  It seems to be popular among locals, probably people in the neighborhood.  The hill is quite noticeable as you drive by, which is why we went up it I guess.

March 2011 - Hieroglyphic Trail

Our last hike on this trip was Hieroglyphic Trail, a 3 mile round trip hike up a valley in the Superstition Mountains.  It is accessed from Gold Canyon, which is a charming little town just east of Apache Junction / Phoenix off Highway 60.  It is a popular and well used trail.  The elevation gain is about 500 feet, which makes it a good little hike that most people should be able to do.

We found the parking lot no problem but it wasn't obvious which direction to set out in.  There were a couple of good old boys unloading horses, so I went up to them and said "You fellas look like you might have been here before ..." They got a kick out of that and they gave us good directions and good wishes for an enjoyable hike too.

Most everyone stops at the pictographs but you can continue on up the valley, which gets steeper and turns to the right.  We stopped about there but it looks like you could push right on up to the top of the ridge above if you wanted to.

At the trailhead

Hieroglyphics/pictographs/petroglyphs/whatchacallems

A toadfrog

Above the pictographs and around the corner, a pretty little canyon

I was not really this tired

March 2011 - Peralta Trail

In March 2011 we stayed at the vacation home of our friends Tilley and Frank.  This was in a 55+ community in Mesa.  It was a bit odd staying there but I actually really liked it.  Pool and hot tub, shuffleboard, tennis courts that no one else was strong enough to use ... What more could you want?  We scored a couple free bags of grapefruits off a fence in Apache Junction, and I enjoyed grapefruit margueritas all week long.  Michele wasn't so thrilled by the lifeless empty house (Tilley and Frank had just bought it and hadn't even used it yet) but we both liked the neighborhood.

Peralta Trail is in the Superstition Mountains, accessed via the community of Gold Canyon which is just east of Mesa / Apache Junction on highway 60.

Coming back down on a trail to the east of Peralta trail -

 involved a bit of bushwacking

December 2010 - Go John Trail

Next up was the Go John Trail.  This is a very popular and highly rated trail, but for me ... Meh.  Don't get me wrong, it was a nice hike, but ... You had to pay, there were lots of people around (at least at the trailhead), and somehow I didn't like the drive through Cave Creek as much as I liked Carefree the day before.  But anyway ...

The hike is 9 or 10 kilometres, a big loop around a couple of peaks.  There was a good hard climb to start then it was pretty flat after that.

See the rabbit?

December 2010 - Cave Creek Trail and Sears Kay Ruins

Our third trip to Phoenix was in December 2010.  We stayed at brother Perry's condo for several days.  This was the first time we really explored the Phoenix area and did a number of adventurous hikes.

Our first one was Cave Creek Trail. This is about 10 miles out of town, part of which is along a well maintained gravel road. It is complicated to explain how to get there, so just check the Google map that is hyperlinked at the beginning of this blog, the trailhead is marked.   It is an interesting hike because it is quite green, with trees instead of cactus (probably because it is along a riverbed).  It was raining when we did this hike, which was a different experience.

On the drive to Cave Creek Trail

At the trailhead

Wetter than we're used to in Phoenix!

On the way back from the Cave Creek Trail, we stopped at the Sears Kay Ruins.  This consists of a short road leading to a parking lot and a short trail, maybe 2 kms, leading up a hill to some old foundations and then back down again.  This is a really intriguing spot - the landscape is pretty, with blobby bedrock towers popping out and the ruins are worth seeing too.

April 2010 - Papago Park and rattlesnake acres

Our second trip to Phoenix was in April 2010.  A bunch of my family got together at my brother's new condo to celebrate his 50th birthday.  It was a good time but we didn't do much hiking.  After dropping my brother and sister-in-law off at the airport, we did walk through Papago Park, which was pretty nice for an urban park.

Papago Park

We also had a nice walk in the scrubland out front of my brother's condo, named "Rattlesnake Acres" by brother Wayne.  This was just vacant land but it went on for miles.  We ended up at the Mayo Clinic which is west of the condo.

March 2008 - Grand Canyon

After Sedona we travelled north on highway 89A to Flagstaff.  This is a beautiful highway to drive but being idiots, we didn't realize it is cold at high altitudes in Arizona so the snow we encountered did surprise us.  The crappy Dodge Prowler we rented in Phoenix suddenly didn't seem like such a good idea.

We made it to the Grand Canyon OK, though, and we stayed at the Bright Angel Lodge in the Grand Canyon Village.  I would recommend it to anyone, we were literally footsteps from the canyon, the little cabins had character and it wasn't too expensive at $115 a night or so.  (We did reserve ahead, not sure if that's necessary.)

From here we hiked a bit of the Bright Angel Trail.  This is one of the classic hikes down into the canyon, maybe the most popular one of all.  In March (or was it Feb?), we had no problems with crowds.  It is a beautiful hike.