Escape to Four Peaks

Every winter, I think about going up to the trails near the top of Four Peaks, but it's too cold up there then. I tell myself that I should go up there in the summer when it's too hot to hike down here. But for some reason I have always forgotten to go up there in the summer. I think the reason is that by the time it gets too hot to hike down here, the monsoon rains have started, and Four Peaks seems to be a thunderstorm magnet. Not a good place to be when there is lightening flashing. Last Friday, though, I decided to head up there, and there weren't any threatening clouds around when I left the house early Saturday afternoon.

It seemed strange to be leaving the house so early. I guess that's because I'm not used to going so far. I kept thinking that the sun was too high and I'd get burned to a crisp, and the lighting was bad for pictures. I had to keep reminding myself that it would be cooler and later by the time I got up there.

The beginning of the road to Four Peaks. It was about 110 degrees here.

This is from a few miles closer. Down to about 107.

Done to 104 here. You can see the road ahead of me. If you zoom in you can see the road going to the left far off in the distance.

Looking back towards where I took that last picture. Down to 103.

The road was pretty much deserted on the way out there. One Lexus SUV in a hurry passed me on the way out there. One truck went by in the other direction. Two ATVs went by in the opposite direction. The first one was taking his time, enjoying the ride. The second one must have been in a race. He came flying around a corner and almost hit my truck. I scared the dookie out of him. I don't know how people are able to drive out there as if they are the only vehicle on the road. I couldn't do that. Maybe that's because I'm so old. Or maybe that's why I'm so old. And maybe the way they drive explains why I see so many medical helicopters going out there, and why there are little crosses beside the road sometimes.

I just remembered that I saw another group of about 4 ATVs parked in the shade of cottonwoods at a dry wash. These were the kind of ATVs with bench seats that hold about 4 people. The people sitting in them looked like they were trying to get a break from the heat. I quickly adjusted an air conditioner vent so that it blew my hair. The young lady sitting in the ATV closest to the road was wearing sunglasses and her skin was flushed red in the heat. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I drove by. Her mouth was open slightly as she watched my hair blow in the cool breeze. Her mouth opened wider as I popped a Pringle in my mouth. I'm such a jerk. It looked like they were on their way down hill, descending into Hades. I wondered how many of those girls would be breaking up with their boyfriends at the end of their trip.

By the time I got to the trailhead, the temperature was down to 94. It felt downright comfortable. Since the sun was still pretty high, and because I was above 6000 feet, I wore my hat. I don't think I needed it, though. I was in the shade of trees or on the shady side of a mountain most of the way. The steepest part of the trail is at the beginning, and that isn't bad. The trail is not very rocky, either. It was easy to follow, even though it was overgrown in some places.

Mmm, the scent of pine, and a cool (relatively speaking) mountain breeze, and the sound of wind whistling through pine needles.

A shady trail.

A lot of these were leaning over the trail. They have thorns. I didn't take them very seriously, though.

A scratch from those thorns that I didn't take seriously.

The trail seems to wind back and forth on either side of a ridge line. At times there were views of Roosevelt lake, but there didn't seem to be a lot to see in the other direction. There are many dead trees in the area. A lot of them were killed by a wild fire in the '90's. More have been killed recently by pine bark beetles.

I got hungry after a while and sat down to eat some food bars. I was in the shade, looking out over Roosevelt lake, and not sweating. I was thinking about the Four Peaks Wilderness area, and how I had read that it has the highest density of black bears in the U.S. It would be cool to see a bear. My sister and I had seen a bear cub in Big Bend once. We were probably lucky we didn't get mauled. About that time I heard a crunch behind me. I'm sure you would have laughed if you could have seen me jump. It turned out to be a couple of tree branches bumping each other in the breeze. It sure got my heart rate up, though.

Roosevelt Lake.

I checked the time once and was dismayed to see how close it was getting to sunset. I decided that I would continue on the trail until 6. After a while, I was sure that 6 had come and gone, but it seemed like I was almost to someplace important. I kept telling myself, "Just a little bit further." I'm glad I kept going. I didn't get to the end of the trail, but I got to a spot on a ridge with great views to the east and west. I sat for a while on the west side, where a strong breeze was coming up the mountain, looking at all the other mountains I recognized out there. I was looking down at all of them. I was looking down at the Superstitions. They looked tiny, far off in the distance. I could see Saguaro Lake. Stewart Mountain was a tiny little bump, as was Red Mountain. I knew there was a large metropolitan area out there, but I couldn't see it through the haze. I did find downtown Phoenix in some pictures the next day. I took a whole lot of pictures up there, and processed them in various ways (I spent most of Sunday working on the pictures). Some show lots of detail but look unrealistic. Some look realistic and boring because of the haze. None of them are good pictures, especially the ones near the limits of the zoom, but I just wanted to capture what I could see. I put a lot of them on the web album, so be prepared to be bored if you look through them. I'll probably go through some of them later and annotate them with mountain names, etc.

The Superstition Mountains.

Saguaro Lake.

Do you recognize Red Mountain?

I was so happy about having made it to that great viewpoint, I was practically skipping on the way back. I wasn't worried about having to find my way back in the dark (if it took me that long), until I remembered the bears. It was downhill and was too dark for pictures before long. I walked as fast as I could. After a month in the recliner, my legs got really tired. As I approached the parking area I could hear some kids playing. I had to slow down, maybe even rest my legs a little. It would be embarrassing for my wobbly legs to collapse under me as I descending into the parking area.

I got a bottle of water out of the truck to wash the blood off my arm (I wanted to use an old bottle I kept there for emergencies rather than one of the fresh bottles in my pack). The water was still hot from my truck being parked in the driveway in the valley hours ago. As I got to the main road down, I could see lights coming on down in the city. I thought about staying to get some pictures, but it was already going to be well past my bed time by the time I got home. Besides, I think the lights were probably too far away to get a decent picture.

The drive back was long and uneventful. I checked the thermometer shortly after starting down and the temperature was 74. I turned off the A/C and rolled down the windows. After a while, me ears got cold! The temperature climbed as quickly as I descended, though. I saw four kangaroo rats and a tarantula along the way.

Click below to see all of the pictures. There are a lot and they aren't very good, but you might see something that interests you.

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