October 16, 2010: Hiking Around Sedona, AZ
	October 13-14, 2010: Willcox, AZ: Biosphere and Picacho Peak
	Return to the Index for our Western Trip

Today we will be spending all our time in the Phoenix area. We'll look at some things in White Tank Mountain Regional Park that we didn't see last time we were here, and then we will head off for the major hike of the day- Camelback Mountain in North Phoenix. That will probably take us most of the day, so we will just head up towards Sedona, Arizona, when we are done there.

Our Campsite at White Tank Mountain Regional Park, AZ

When we got up in the morning it was cooler than it had been the night before, although the day promised to be another warm one. As soon as we had gotten outside the tent, Fred set up his tripod and took the official campsite picture. We got showered and changed into some new clothes for today and returned to the campsite. After I put my shoes on, Fred had us both pose with one of the cacti. You can see the resulting pictures if you click on the thumbnails below:

Fred also took a very good panoramic photo, stitching together two separate pictures. I have placed a copy of it below:

We struck the tent and packed up the RAV4 and headed off to look at some petroglyphs.

The Petroglyph Trail (White Tank Regional Park)

The White Tank Mountains are home to a number of archaeological sites, with 11 having been identified within the park boundaries, including 7 Hohokam (dated to a period centered on 750AD) villages. The Petroglyph Trail provides access to some of the rock paintings left by these ancient peoples, although there are more of them on the Waterfall Trail. We skipped the Waterfall Trail because there is only a waterfall very shortly after a good rain, and it hadn't rained here for weeks.

We did drive down the road towards the park entrance and stopped at the parking area for the Petroglyph Trail. Here we could see some of the petroglyphs scattered throughout the park; there is some evidence suggesting that some might predate the Hohokam civilization.

Just before starting out on the trail, Fred had me take a picture of him with some unusual cactus. We followed the trail across the road to what turned out to be a half-mile circle through the scrub and cactus. The trail was well-marked and there were some very pretty cactus along the way.

Eventually, we came to a rock outcropping where we found the petroglyphs. Fred took a picture of the best example, and you can see it here.

I, too, took a number of pictures along the trail, and you can have a look at them if you click on the thumbnails at right. We completed the half-mile loop in just a few minutes, and then headed back to the parking area to pick up the RAV4 and drive out of the park towards Phoenix and Camelback Mountain.

Climbing Camelback Mountain

First, we had to GET to Camelback Mountain, and we decided to rely not on my memory but on our GPS.

Camelback Mountain and Echo Canyon are part of a park reserve in northeastern Phoenix- east of Glendale and just on the northwest border between Phoenix/Glendale and Scottsdale. Some years ago I came to Scottsdale on business and stayed at a resort hotel further northeast of Camelback. One afternoon, I did come over to the mountain, but I did not know about the trailhead that we will use today, and so I parked my car in a residential area east of the park reserve and lit out cross-country towards the top of the mountain. I don't recall now whether I reached the same peak that I would today. Perhaps when you read this I will have done my photos from that trip and that question will be answered.

We followed the GPS directions to get to East McDonald Drive and Echo Canyon Parkway. The directions led us back the way we had come last night along Olive Avenue. We couldn't see them in the dark last night, but we discovered that there were huge rose nurseries along this street, with roses as far as you could see.

Although the aerial view at right may not show it to best effect due to the shadows present at the time the aerial picture was made, Camelback Mountain is the iconic peak towering above the greater Phoenix area, rising to a height of 2,704 feet. The trail to the summit, which I have marked to the best of my recollection and by using other sources, gains 1,300 feet of elevation over a mere 1.16 miles— making the gradient over 100 feet per 530 feet of distance; that's a 20% grade. Yes, it's that steep. For hikers willing to brave the steep trail and the often-blazing temperatures, the Summit Trail leads to the highest peak in the Phoenix Mountains.

Today was a typical Phoenix fall day; bright sunshine and temperatures pushing 90 degrees. When we got close to Echo Canyon Parkway, we began to see cars parked on city streets, but we turned up the street towards the official parking area anyway. Just outside the park gate, we happened to find a parking space on the east side of the street, so I did a quick U-turn and grabbed it. As it turned out, we would be fortunate to park where we did and not in the actual parking area- but more on that later. I've marked our parking spot and some of the other interesting points here at the trailhead on the aerial view at left.

We took some time to gather our camera gear together and have a drink; I'm bad, I suppose, but I rarely carry water even on long hikes. I've returned pretty parched on occasion but have never really had a problem. And, after all, this hike was only a little over a mile one-way. But as it turned out my mental image of the hike was quite different from the actuality of it, and had I known what we were in for, I might have carried some. But there wasn't a problem with water as it turned out.

We walked up the drive to the parking area for Echo Canyon Park and the trailhead.

First of all, you may wonder why the mountain is named "Camelback Mountain." We could not see it last night, but when you come across Phoenix on I-10, you can see the outline of the mountain, which truly does resemble a kneeling camel, from several points. Camelback is a two-summitted mountain, the higher eastern summit forming the camel’s hump and the lower western summit representing the head. Our trail today will take us to the top of the higher eastern summit.

As I said earlier, for some reason I had a much different mental image of the hike up Camelback. I should have been prepared, given our hike up Spirit Mountain a few years ago, also here in downtown Phoenix, but I thought that based on my shorter hike up the eastern slope some years ago, that the western hike was an improved, paved trail. Where I got that idea I have no clue, but it turned out to be as far from the truth as you could get. And I could tell it wasn't true as soon as we got to the trailhead.

Trailhead to the Top of the Wash

As you can see from this picture that was taken a few hundred feet up along the trail, my idea of a tree-lined, improved, paved, sloping trail was already way off the mark. So far, at least, the trail was rocky, steep, hot and certainly not paved. My image of families with kids walking along up a winding path to the summit was out; enter an image of only seasoned hikers who have come well-prepared for a strenuous hike. Indeed, it seemed as if almost everyone we saw was relatively young and in pretty good shape; I don't recall seeing anyone much older than I, and most folks were a good deal younger. But we consider ourselves adventurous hikers, so this first introduction to the trail did not dissuade us.

The hike began at the Echo Canyon parking lot, where we found a ramada, an interpretive kiosk, and a drinking fountain. The trail descended a few steps and then headed uphill into Echo Canyon— a shallow drainage flanked by rounded cliffs to the north. The trail reaches the top of Echo Canyon in 0.3 miles, and a bench at this point allows for a rest stop.

The first part of the trail, from the trailhead to a point where the trail disappeared around the northeast side of the western peak, was relatively easy. There were stairs to climb which made the going easy, and along this stretch we did see, as evidenced in this picture of me on one of the stairways, families and kids.

One interesting thing we noticed right away was how the homes in this part of Phoenix were built right up onto the lower slopes of Camelback Mountain. From what we could see (and from what you can see here and here), every reasonable piece of land had been used to build houses. Only when the slopes turned into land too steep for construction did the wild area begin.

The trail wound up through a wide wash to a first resting place by a large boulder (that you can see in the picture at right) where we stopped so I could get a picture looking back towards the parking area of Fred on the trail. From there, it crossed the wash in front of what appeared to be a picnic kiosk and then began to ascend steeply again up to another small plateau. Looking back, we could see we'd already climbed up quite a ways.

From this vantage point, I took another couple of pictures that you can look at if you click on the thumbnails below. As you can see, I've already had to shed my t-shirt as it's gotten pretty damp already. It feels better with it off.

Echo Canyon I made a movie from the midpoint of the portion of the hike that takes us up Echo Canyon.

The Extremely Steep Trail to the Saddle

When we left the resting spot at the top of Echo Canyon, the trail bent south under the towering east face of "The Hump." Based on what we'd seen so far, we'd (I'd) revised my estimates of what the trail would be like, and now we were prepared for rough terrain, boulder scrambling, and the inevitable negotiating of loose rock and gravel.

But even so we weren't quite prepared for what we found as we rounded behind the western peak. At this point, a chain link fence began running along our left side; it protects the houses below from falling rocks. As we turned the corner to the backside of "The Hump," our first response to the scene ahead was a resounding, “Are you kidding me?”

It is hard to realize how steep the trail became; it was so steep in spots that a handrail had been provided for balance. Just ahead of us on the trail we could see the beginning of this handrail section— and the view ahead was pretty amazing. We'd encountered trail sections like this before, but they had been much shorter and somewhat less steep. This was one for our personal record books.

I don't know what Fred was thinking, but I was really anxious to negotiate the handrail section. I dearly love rock scrambling, and this section of the trail was very, very inviting. I took the lead and began negotiating up the sheer (and sometimes slippery) rock face- using the handrail when necessary. I reached the top of the section a couple of minutes before Fred, who was taking his time and being cautious (a trait I sometimes seem to lack when hiking).

The views along this section, if you can take your eyes of the slick path, are incredibly beautiful. Along this section, and from the top of it, we took a number of interesting pictures. Have a look at them by clicking on the thumbnails below:

We made our way up the slope and after about 10 minutes of climbing, the handrail ended and we came out on a relatively flat area that is pretty much at the half-mile mark (a little less than halfway to the summit, laterally). Standing here, you are in something of a saddle between the trail to the west peak, which can be hiked but which isn't nearly as popular, and the trail to the summit. There are really great views in all directions, particularly to the north and to the to the southwest and downtown Phoenix.

If you'd like to see some more of the beautiful views from the halfway point on our hike, just click on the thumbnails below:

The Halfway Point At the top of the handrail section, we are about 40% along in the hike, and I made a movie of the views in all directions from this halfway point.

The Next Quarter-Mile

Here at the saddle the climb really gets interesting. This next section of the hike was probably the hardest segment; the trail climbs steeply up boulder-filled gullies and along airy ridge crests. In this section, there is a general path that is followed, but you have to make your own ascent in your own way- not only to make it easier but also to avoid or pass other hikers going up and down. So we spent the next 45 minutes or so navigating this section, until we reached a point probably three-quarters of the way to the summit.

In the picture at left, taken a bit before we had finished this section of the hike, you can look back northwest along the trail. I've marked the cliff face at the base of which was the handrail section, and I've marked the approximate location of the saddle where we stopped to take the pictures you saw in the previous section. You can see that you pretty much have to make your own trail up this section, but there have been so many hikers that the best routes are pretty apparent.

On the downside, there have been so many hikers over the years that much of the sand and gravel has been ground into a fine powder, and this powder can be very slippery when it collects on a rock that you happen to step on. Choosing your steps carefully minimizes the danger of falling, but when you aren't thinking about where your next foot is going to go you can make a mistake. Falling going up is bad enough; falling coming down can be a lot worse.

At this three-quarters point Fred decided he'd forgo the rest of the hike to the summit and either wait for me to return from the top of just begin to make his way down again. I freely admit that we were both getting tired, but as usual I didn't want to have come this far only to turn around at the final fence. Fred was very understanding in allowing me to go on to the top on my own. And after cautioning him to be careful on the way down (we'd already passed what I thought was a girl just resting with her hiking partners but who I learned from another hiker had actually broken her ankle- perhaps when she herself slipped on the fine rock dust that coats many of the boulders) I went ahead to the summit.

I took a couple of pictures as we ascended in this section; click on the thumbnails below to have a look at them:

Along the Trail As we were clambering up the next section of the trail, I got a bit ahead of Fred so I stopped to make a movie looking back down the trail.

Fred also took a number of good pictures during this section of the hike, some of them showing how new homes have been built as far up the mountainsides as possible. Take a look at his pictures by clicking on the thumbnails below:

The Ascent to the Summit

Regretfully, I have left Fred sitting in a shady spot to wait for me (or start down if he wishes) and I have begun the final portion of the trail to the summit. Just after I started off, he took a picture looking up at the summit.

I Begin the Final Stretch Having left Fred to wait for me or begin his way down, I have gone up another short distance and made a movie looking up at the trail ahead.

I started off, then, up a final rocky ravine that leads to the soaring summit of Camelback Mountain. I didn't take any pictures during this final ascent. There weren't unobstructed views in most directions, and I thought the views would not equal those that I'd get soon at the top.

On the Summit of Camelback Mountain

I reached the summit about a quarter hour after leaving Fred. The summit, 1.16 miles from the trailhead, affords a 360-degree view of Phoenix and the surrounding mountain ranges. You can see Superstition, Usery, McDowell and Four Peaks. The summit is composed mostly of bare rock with a sheer vertical drop off the east side to the valley below. I relaxed on the summit for a good quarter of an hour, taking pictures in all directions, having a fellow hiker take a picture of me, and in general just admiring the view- made all the more beautiful considering the effort that it took to get here to see it.

One thing I did was to try my hand at making a 360-degree view from the summit. To do so, I have to take eight to ten different pictures, trying to keep the camera at the same level so that the pictures will stitch together. I usually take these pictures on an automatic setting, which sometimes means that the exposure is greater or lesser depending on whether I am looking towards or away from a light source like the sun. So when I stitch the pictures together manually, the sky, particularly, can abruptly change from one portion of the final view to the next. I can do some amount of fuzzing to make the transitions less noticeable, but I can't get rid of them entirely. In any event, you can use the slider window below to look at my effort:

If you would like to see the source pictures that I stitched together, you can click on the thumbnails below. The leftmost thumbnail in the first row is the extreme left of the 360-degree image (north).

From the Summit of Camelback Here is the movie that corresponds to the 360-degree picture above. I started in the same direction and panned 360 degrees around from the summit.

After spending maybe 20 minutes here at the summit, I started down again. It is beautiful up here; everyone should come to a place like this occasionally to keep perspective.

The Rescue

You may recall that on the way up, Fred and I passed a girl who I originally thought was just resting but who had actually broken her ankle. In a previous movie, I noted the sirens of the EMS personnel coming to the parking area. When I got back down to where she was, I found her surrounded by EMS personnel who, I can only assume, had hiked up to here from the parking area. With all that they were wearing and all that they were carrying, that was indeed quite feat. At first I thought that they might fashion a litter or stretcher and carry her down, but as soon as I pictured them going down the handhold section I realized that wasn't feasible. It was then that I overheard the EMS personnel talking about a helicopter coming in for the evacuation. That seemed improbable too, but apparently there is a relatively flat section nearby that has been used as a landing pad before. (More eavesdropping revealed that rescues like this occur pretty frequently- a few times a week in the summer!) I wanted to see the process, so I sat down nearby to wait for the helicopter to come.

The Helicopter Lands After a few minutes, I could hear the helicopter in the distance, so I scrambled over to where I could get a good view of it coming in to make this movie.

When I saw where the helicopter had landed, I scrambled over around the mountainside further to take up a position very close to the helicopter sitting above me. Then I waited while the EMS guys carried the girl over and put her in the helicopter and it was ready to go.

The Helicopter Departs

After I'd started a few movies at the wrong time, I made this one of the helicopter leaving Camelback for the hospital (presumably). I was shooting into the sun, so try to ignore the interference.

Quite an operation. When the helicopter had left, I started down, as did the other hikers and the EMS personnel. I stayed a bit in front of them most of the way, and overheard them talking about "the guy who was right under the helicopter" and as to how "he probably doesn't have much hearing left." I assumed they meant me, but it wasn't all that loud.

Leaving Camelback

I got back to the RAV4 about thirty minutes later to find Fred sitting under a tree waiting for me. He recounted as to how we were lucky that we hadn't parked in the lot; some folks had told him that the emergency vehicles had totally blocked it and no one could get in or out until they left, which they did about a half hour later.

I had a Diet Sunkist and a snack while we discussed what we'd do next. We had done the hike Fred wanted to do in Phoenix, so the next order of business was to have a late lunch and head up to Sedona.

Driving to Sedona, AZ

We left Camelback Mountain about three in the afternoon and went a few block south on McDonald to head west on Camelback Road. We were looking for someplace to get a late lunch, but didn't see anything before we hit I-17. We got on the expressway and headed north.

We had just passed the Pima Expressway (kind of like a Phoenix loop) when I saw a sign for a Friday's at an exit called Happy Valley Road. We stopped there and had something to eat and a lot to drink. Then we got back on I-17 and continued north. The further north we went the better the scenery got, and Fred was able to take some nice pictures out the car window. You can have a look at them here and here.

Our plan was to camp in the Oak Creek Canyon campground about eight miles north of Sedona, but this was Friday night and we were understandably concerned that by the time we got there the campground would be full. We also knew that we would need a Red Rock Pass to use any of the camping and hiking areas around Sedona. So we stopped in Camp Verde to get some gas and seek out a tourist office. We found that they did not have the passes and that not only would the campgrounds around Sedona likely be full but so would most of the hotels. There was no way to call the campground and since it was on the far side of Sedona we thought that it would be a waste of time to drive all the way up there to see if there was a space.

So we resolved to find a hotel in Sedona for tonight and then check on the campground for Saturday and Sunday. We got off the Interstate at Highway 179 north to Big Park and Sedona. As soon as we were off the Interstate and heading north, we entered "Red Rock Country." In the fading afternoon light, the scenery just got better and better as we approached and entered Big Park, AZ. Fred took some good pictures as we drove, and you can have a look at them if you click on the thumbnails below:

Actually, I thought that when we got to Big Park we were actually IN Sedona, but the two are about four miles apart. In any event, we were driving up the highway looking for likely places we might stay. Much was full or way too high-end for us, but we did come to a La Quinta that did not have a "No Vacancy" sign out. We stopped and I went into the lobby to see if they had any rooms. They did have just a couple left and the price seemed reasonable for Sedona so we took it. It turned out to be a really nice room and the property to also be very nice for a La Quinta. Plus they had WI-FI and we could do some investigation of hikes and stuff for tomorrow.

After we'd gotten settled, we decided to drive up through Sedona and see if we could find the campground and find out whether there might be spaces for the other nights of the weekend. We got back on Highway 179 and headed north towards Sedona. We passed a tourist office on the way and I was able to go in and obtain the Red Rock Pass, which would be good all weekend all throughout the area. We also passed a couple of hotels and I stopped in to see about rooms just in case, but every place I tried was full on Saturday although some had vacancies on Sunday.

By the time we passed through Sedona it was dark, and we had a devil of a time trying to find the campground. After passing it once, doubling back and asking at two places, we finally located it. It was a smallish campground down below Highway 89A between the highway and Oak Creek. It looked like a decent place, but it was packed to the gills and noisy. We sought out the campground host, but she wasn't too helpful. She thought the campground would also be full tomorrow with people staying over; one of the big campgrounds nearby was already closed for the season and that was making everything more crowded. So we headed back down towards Sedona, checking at a few more places along the way. It seemed as if there was to be absolutely nothing available tomorrow in the area- not our La Quinta and not anyplace else I checked.

As we came back through town, we stopped and parked and walked around for a while looking for a place to have dinner. We found a place that had a good menu- the Cowboy Club. We put our names down and went and walked some more until our table was ready. The dinner was good. I bought some fudge at a little shop after dinner and we headed back down to Big Park.

Before we retired for the night, we did some planning. There wasn't going to be anything available in the Sedona area for either camping or staying in a hotel on Saturday. Fred, however, had listed a couple things he wanted to see that were back down by Interstate 17 between Camp Verde and the Highway 179 turnoff. We checked on hotels down in that area and found a Days Inn that had some space for Saturday night. So, we planned to spend the day on Saturday hiking around Sedona and then drive down to Camp Verde and stay there Saturday night. We'd do the two things Fred had researched on Sunday morning, and then return to Sedona to do some additional hiking. We would check on the campground for Sunday night; it should clear out as people go back home for the workweek, we thought.

We felt better about things now that we had a plan, so we worked on pictures for a while and then went to sleep.

You can use the links below to continue to the album page for different day.

	October 16, 2010: Hiking Around Sedona, AZ
	October 13-14, 2010: Willcox, AZ: Biosphere and Picacho Peak
	Return to the Index for our Western Trip