Hieroglyphic Trail

Well I am finally adding to the post! I'm so glad that Vanessa is keeping the blog updated! It is so fun to see our adventures. If I was keeping the blog updated we would not be seeing all the fun adventures! Back in November the kids were out of school for Veterans Day. We took them hiking to the Hieroglyphic Trail, which is in the Superstition Mountains. I have not been on this trail and I really enjoyed it, probably as much as the kids.

The trail was fun to drive to. The signs were small to direct you to the trail. You drive through residential neighborhoods and then before you know it you are at the trailhead. We had 3 cars full of kids. Vanessa, Berkley and Austin, Lisa, Mark and Bryan, Allyson, Sydney, Mia and Kendall, me (Sherree), Dylan and Cole and Chattie braved all the children to join us.

The hike was a steady climb but not too difficult. When you get to the end of the trail it is worth the hike! The kids loved all the Petroglyphs, rocks to climb and a little cave to play in! They did not want to leave the area! I am so glad we did this hike and would do it again with the kids.

Time to Play Catch-Up

The month of December flew by in a flurry, I never even had the chance to post anything!

As the middle of the month was approaching, the pressure was on to hit at least the half-way point for our goal of 100 miles before Jan 30!  I'll admit, Lisa, Sherree and I were becoming a little crazy and desperate!  Crazy because we were eager to hike in any type of weather, and Desperate because we found out some of our previous miles didn't count toward our goal (they were not in a Maricopa County Park)... so we felt really behind!

This is what Crazy and Desperate looks like:

Before the hike... gray skies and sprinkles, storm was imminent.

After the hike, drenched but still smiling...

Just for the crazy record, these photos only depict ONE of the rainy hikes we endured... it was a weird weather streak there for a couple of weeks... but we decided to embrace the adventure rather than give up on the challenge.

On another Wind Cave hike, Sherree and I experienced low cloud coverage, it ended up being a beautiful hike...

On another day we saw a couple deer as we were leaving the parking lot

One of the deer pictured here, right in the middle of the photo.
I promise its there... click the photo to enlarge :)

There was one day that we didn't have much time to hike, so we decided to try the Merkle Trail which is also in Usery Park.  It is a flat wide trail around the base of a hill.  We went around Merkle once, then up and over the peak once.  The total distance was about 2 miles, and the mostly flat terrain resulted in an easy quick pace.

Well, that's a quick overview of last months hiking.  We still have pictures of the Hieroglyphic Trail and Spur Cross which haven't yet made it onto the blog... but we've been busy trying new hikes and enjoying our social exercising time.  Today Erica and I took a break from the usual as well.  We met at Rebecca's house and hit the trail from right out her backyard!  Our destination was Cat's Peak which I had never hiked before, it was an enjoyable and windy time.  We heard all about Erica's upcoming move to North Dakota with her family... it will be so hard to see them go.  After the hike, Rebecca made us some delicious spinach and blueberry orange smoothies... yum.

Happy New Year to everyone who reads this blog :)  It is going to be a fantastic 2012!