As i said before, the hikes in this book are common hikes, some of which I had even hiked before i got my hiking book. I won't make the effort to go back and be retroactive about accounting for all the hikes I've done in my life, but I will go back a little over a month and start with this hike:
The Peralta Trail
- Distance: 4.6 Miles
- Elevation Gain: 1,360 ft
- Difficulty: Moderate
- Traffic: Moderate-High
The night before, Shirley had talked about going running in the morning, well, by the time we got up after sleeping in and such, it was already past 9:00 if i remember, and Shirley didn't feel very much like going for a run anywhere around our place. She asked if we could go hiking.
Uh.... I was pretty sure there wasn't anywhere for hiking that was close enough to get to before the heat of the day set in, but i knew there were some trails off of the 60, out east past the valley. So we jumped on the freeway and headed east. I knew there was a turnoff for the Peralta Trail, though i didn't know what the road was like or how far it went back. We took it. The road was fine for our car, and from our place, it took us 45 minutes to get there. So away we went.
I remember that we got on the trail the same time as two other ladies. We were hiking right behind them and they could tell that we wanted to pass them, so they scooted over and let us pass, but warned us that we'd better run or they would catch us. Ha!
It was a great hike. I really enjoyed it. The superstition wilderness is amazing, and the hike itself wasn't too difficult. I was just afraid of the rattlesnakes. I think 3 (maybe 4) times, we passed hikers that were coming back that told us to watch the trail about five minutes ahead because they'd seen a rattlesnake on the trail. I was pretty scared. But we never actually did see the snakes.
We stopped when we got to Freemont Saddle (where most day hikers stop on this trail). There's a wonderful view of Weever's Needle there, as well as some fun rocks to climb around on the west side of the trail at the saddle. After a brief break, and after getting some fellow hikers to take our picture, we turned around and headed back.
Now, the reason we don't often invite friends to come with us on hikes (and Shirley will admit that it's more her than me) is that we like to cruise at a pretty brisk pace. Generally, on a hike, we hike the uphill and run the downhill. So I hope no one feels offended that we don't invite too many others to come hiking with us (though feel free to ask to come if you feel up to the challenge).
On the run down, about half way back, we passed the two ladies that we started with. They were still on their way up. Amateurs.
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