A morning hike

Most people in the Houston, Texas area prefer to mow their lawns in the morning because it's cooler then.  The relative humidity is also near 100% at that time.  Just looking at the lawn mower had sweat running down my face, so I usually mowed in late afternoon.

People also like to hike in the morning in Arizona because it's cooler.  I've never liked hiking in the morning because it's still hot then and you know it's only going to get hotter.  Much hotter.  I tried a morning hike recently, though.  I volunteered to help put up a sign in Tonto National Forest that depicted the work done to remove salt cedar, an invasive species.  We started out at 8 a.m. from the Picketpost trailhead.

I didn't take any cameras.  Not even my cell phone.  I only carried a backpack full of water.  It was a cloudless day with the high forecast to be over 105F (41C).  The leader of the group walked faster than I usually do on hikes but I didn't have any trouble keeping up on the way out.  After we were done with the sign we hiked a little further to where the salt cedar had been removed.  It was a beautiful area and I knew I'd be back to get some pictures when  the weather was cooler.  We headed back to the trailhead around 10.  It was brutal.  The sun was too high to find shade under a saguaro.  I had to slow down to keep from overheating.  All I could think about was the fact that the temperature was only going up and the only escape was my air-conditioned truck.  I guess I'm still not a morning hiker.

One afternoon a few weeks later it was a little cooler because there were some monsoon storms around.  I drove up the canyon east of Superior the check out the waterfalls and on the way back decided to hike out to the sign we had put up.

Some waterfalls east of Superior.

It was very cloudy so I still wasn't going to get any good pictures.  I mostly wanted to be sure I remembered how to get out there since we had deviated from the official trail.  When I got close to where the sign was, I heard lots of water flowing fast.

Water flowing over small dam near Picketpost Mountain

The trail to the more interesting scenery crossed this creek so I couldn't go any further.  Maybe I'll be able to get some pictures out there in the fall.