When I was sitting in church this morning, I decided that today was the day I would hike Picacho Peak. It's about an hour away from Tucson and I've been wanting to do it since I came out here and interviewed (June 2012). I've read about what a difficult hike it is online, and boy... it did not disappoint. I'm fairly certain I will not be able to get out of bed tomorrow. It was very steep. At some points, I was traversing sections requiring hand-over-hand climbing aided by steal cables and handrails. I realized why the few people I passed early on coming down the trail were all concerned when I told them I was going alone. It's something I do quite often now. That's what happens when you move 1,700 miles away from home. It still doesn't make my mother any happier! I've definitely done trails with cables before, but never this steep. The view from the top was breathtaking, and made the difficult trek to the top worthwhile. From the summit, I was rewarded with 360 degrees of breathtaking views of the surrounding Sonoran desert. Going down was a piece of cake. I was even able to jog about half of it. Slow, yes, but still a bit quicker pace. I never really picked up speed as this trail had a lot of loose rock and I wasn't totally comfortable with my footing. At one point, my left foot slipped way off the edge and I literally slid down the rocks to the next switchback about twenty feet below. Don't tell my mother... she will flip. That was pretty scary, but I was okay. Just got up and kept jogging along.
Overall, it was a great day! My calves were incredibly tight the first half of the hike. Never had tightness like that before. About the time they eased up (I stopped to stretch a lot), I rolled my left ankle. Yay! I literally went less than 1 MPH climbing to the top. Garmin said it was 1.35 miles in 1:36. Seriously? WOW. Downhill was much quicker... about 35 minutes. When I was halfway down on the return, I stopped at this bench to take a few pictures and a couple passed me heading up. The lady looked to be about 8 months pregnant. I'm quite concerned about how they did. At that point, they hadn't hit anything strenuous yet. I hope she's okay... and didn't go into labor!
On my way home, I stopped at the Dairy Queen like 1/2 mile from the base of the trail. First of all, I was scared for my life. Rough crowd. Secondly, I totally reversed the exercise I had just done by getting onion rings and a blizzard. YUM!
Elevation gain: 1780 feet | 