Mt. Wrightson

First a story to tell, before I share any pictures. About a year and a half ago, I decided along with my brothers, that we were going to climb Mt. Wrightson. Mt. Wrightson is the highest peak in the Tucson area, with a peak at about 9300 feet or so. Anyways, we picked a day, and failed miserably, due to a combination of factors including a trunk that wouldn't open, a new car that was leaking radiator fluid, but mostly because I wasn't in good enough shape to make it.

So, I've wanted to make it to the top of this mountain ever since. I just didn't know where to start. Well, about 4-5 months ago I found a group of people at my work that are avid hikers, and so I decided to start hiking with one of them in particular. We started with some flat trails, and I was able to walk about 7 miles, most of it flat. But that would have been barely enough to make it to the top of the mountain, not to mention the elevation gain.

Over the course of about 3 months, I kept up training, at first every other week, the switching to every week. Finally, I was able to make an 8 mile grueling hike, and was thus ready to give Mt. Wrightson another shot.

So I tried again, on October 1, 2010. And this time, I made it. The trail was about 12 miles, 4000 feet gain in elevation, and took about 8 hours, and 4 liters of water, but I made it! Yeah! Anyways, here's a few pictures from the journey.



















This next picture is me at the top


And this one is my co-worker who helped me make it to the top

Finger Rock

Here are some pictures from a recent trip to Finger Rock. Finger Rock in a unique mountain formation that's up in the Catalinas, it's only really visible if you're pretty close to them, but you can see it from a ways a way. The trail to hike up there is among the more difficult I've done. Still, the view is awesome, I highly recommend it!

Blackett's Ridge

So, after my last adventures, I was finally able to make it to the top of Blackett's Ridge. It's almost 3 miles one way, for a total of 5.5 miles round trip. It's one of the tougher hikes that I've been on (Elevation gain 1600 feet, most of it in a mile), but that just makes for scenic views more quickly. So, here's some shots from my now successful trip up Blackett's Ridge.

Lessons Learned

Recently, I went hiking, and while I had enough water, I was lacking otherwise in my preparedness in a few key areas, which I will mention later. As a whole, it was a good learning experience, one that I hope to not repeat...

The goal was to make it to the top of Blackett's Ridge, almost 3 miles from the parking lot, but about 1600 feet in elevation gain, most of it in the middle third of the trail. It all started well, but I soon learned my first lesson, don't forget the spare battery, or at least make sure the primary one has been charged recently... I ran out of power a mere 15 minutes into the hike, too late to turn back, but I still missed alot. I still got a few good pictures, however, which I will share later.

My second lesson was a bit harder, don't forget to pre-hydrate on a desert hike... The end result was, I didn't make it to the top, because I started feeling a bit sick. Now, I'm not sure how much of this was due to not pre-hydrating, and how much was due to something else, but, well, it was an interesting result at any rate...

In a soon-to-be released post, I'll post some pictures from the hike when I learned these two lessons, but for now, I'll post my best pictures from the hike, which are still good, although I wish I had more to select from... The weather and time of day was perfect for this area for photographs!

More Sabino Canyon

I've been hiking in the Sabino Canyon every other week, as a means of training for a larger hike, to the top of Mount Wrightson, located in Southern Arizona. I've been gradually doing more interesting things, and yesterday took me on the Esperero Trail to a saddle point a few miles in, to an area called "Cardiac Gap" by Betty Leavengood. It was a climb of 1650 feet roughly to that point. It's an amazing view, I highly recommend it. Here are a few pictures from the hike, I hope you enjoy!
















This picture is at the top of the hike.