South Mountain is the one with all the antennae and flashing red lights, folks are not allowed to actually access the summit. Since I had about four hours I chose the Holman Trail, which leaves from a huge parking lot within the city park. After battling mostly stopped traffic to get there Wednesday morning, I counted just four other cars. The recent storms have been kind to the desert, and plenty of wildflowers are blooming. The trail begins at the bottom of a drainage, which of course means walking through scrub mesquite trees and a little shade. That doesn't last long, as it is the desert. Shortly, some surprisingly intact hieroglyphs are perched behind a decrepit split rail fence, so I took the obligatory photos and wondered about the folks who made them - were they criticized for vandalism or leaving their art out in public? After about 100 yards on a paved road, the trail starts climbing in earnest as it winds upward along the face of the canyon. A saddle between two canyons made a nice diversion, walking out to a point gives a great view of the metropolis that is Phoenix. This day was nicely overcast so heat and lack of water were not a problem, which would keep most people to about this spot in the summer. I kept going up to the lookout, branching off near the building where the Holman trail heads a different direction. Once there I saw plenty of people that took the road up and hiked about 20 yards from a parking lot. I hung out there for a bit, mostly trying to find out about the higher peaks to the west, which had some snow on them when I drove out on Tuesday. Turns out they are part of the Estrella range, which is not very accessible because most of it is part of the local Indian reservation. Any other hikes out there require 4WD or a very long portage so that rules them out for my future planning.
On the return, I walked the road for a bit and met up again with the Holman trail for my descent. When I crossed a wash, I figured it was one that I had crossed on the trail so I followed it to a place where it has a steep dropoff. I thought I could see trail on the ridge across from me but the rocky terrain makes it hard to pick out and no one walked by. Rather than down-climbing a section that might be hard to ascend I followed the rule of "if you don't know don't go" and walked back to the actual trail. I think that cutting trail in a popular public park is not a good idea either.... Anyway, this hike was a little over five miles with AllTrails data claiming over 1000 feet of elevation gain.
Since I was leaving late on Thursday I combined the use of our public lands for sleeping with another hike on Friday morning. I drove from Glendale to Tonopah and shortly afterward arrived at the BLM Saddle Mountain area in the dark where I set up the Ranger for sleeping in the cool desert breeze. The next morning I had a leisurely breakfast including some hot chocolate and pop tarts, which I justify based on the calories yet to be burned off. After a bit of a disagreement with Siri regarding the trailhead, I found the correct spot and headed out. I could see a couple of hikers ahead of me and just past the saddle I caught up to them, where we tried to figure out the correct trail direction. This hike has some class 3 areas plus some awesome exposure near the top, but some cairns line the way making for relatively easy route-finding. I went up a little notch before one of the false summits and ended up on a ridge with a few hundred feet of air straight down from me, when the ridge narrowed to about a foot wide I hopped down and took a lower path to finally reach the top. Up there are three markers placed in 1947, plus a metal box containing the summit register which I signed before wandering around to enjoy the expansive views. All too soon it was time to get on the road again, so I made my way down with only a couple of slips but no falls on the loose and sandy rock areas. Short but steep describes this hike, as the three mile total includes nearly 1600 feet of gain.
Dobbins Pics:
Trailhead in South Mountain Park.
After crossing a saddle this is the first view of the lookout building.
Guardians at the cutoff junction to the lookout.
Arriving at the lookout building, it was constructed in the 1930's.
Greater Phoenix, Squaw Peak is the pointed one right of center and Camelback is right of that.
Saddle Pics:
Saddle Mountain from my camping spot.
Trailhead and different view. The trail goes up to the v-shaped saddle and then contours around and up to the summit.
A little bit of rocky trail just before the saddle. Not official but pretty easy to find except for one water drainage area.
Conquering hero pose.
Exposure just below the summit, it's at least 500 feet straight down.
