Two Hikes

This week was my final preparation for the “AZ Canyon to Mountain Challenge,” or, as I learned it is also called, the “Death March.” To do that, on Tuesday I hiked up to Squaw Peak for one last time with my sister-in-law Megan and her mother. She is pretty quick, and I had a hard time keeping up with her. But, we summited fairly quickly, and had a good time. Then on Thursday I hiked up Mt. Nebo with Jeff, the same Jeff Stacey and I hiked Squaw Peak with a couple weeks ago. It was really fun. We left my house at about 5:00 AM, and got to the trailhead and started hiking at about 6:25. We hiked quickly, but at the same time stopped often to take pictures. Jeff enjoys and is good at photography (he took our engagement photos), and he packed his tripod all the way up the mountain. We saw only three people the whole way up, a father and two sons who were just hiking around, not summiting, and looking for game with a spotting scope.

We summited around 10:10, about an hour later than we had anticipated, but we summited in very good spirits and feeling very good. The last .75 miles or so of the 5 miles hike we gained well over 1/3rd of the elevation, so the last little bit was a straight up scurry and scramble to the sumit. It was great. It had been a while since I had hiked something where I had to use my hands, and if I slipped, I would be rolling for a looooong ways before I stopped.

We took some pictures at the top, called some people, and had fun. One thing I learned on the way up is an amazing thing to eat while hiking. I had brought a little bottle of honey up, and was eating it like you would Gu. But, I also had some granola bars, and I decided to put honey on the granola bars. It is VERY good, and packs a lot of kick as far as quickly digestible calories go. I am a honey on granola bars convert. We headed down, and made good use of our trekking poles. We got down in about the same time we got up, and had a good time doing so. So ended our hike.