We left Mesa yesterday and drove a whole 65 miles from the east side of Phoenix to the west side of Phoenix. The dividing line between the Phoenix Basin of the Salt River Valley and west AZ Hassayampa Plain is the White Tank Mountains west of Sun City and Luke AFB. We are still in Maricopa County and staying in their White Tank Mountains Regional Park. This is a very large park with lots of hiking trails, picnic areas, playgrounds and horse riding trails but only 40 campsites. Luckily they just recently added electricity to each site and people haven’t learned about it yet so we were able to get a very nice site.
The giant saguaro guarding our campsite.
Yesterday afternoon John rode his bike all over the park while I hiked a short 1.5 mile trail out of the campground. This is a very pretty desert area with lots of cacti, desert bushes and flowers. We especially enjoy the humming birds buzzing John’s orange shirt and mocking birds serenading us as the sun is setting and illuminating the Phoenix valley.
Today I convinced John that we could hike an 8 mile loop trail. We geared up with back packs and hiking poles but probably didn’t bring enough water. It was a fairly arduous trail that went up over 2,000 foot elevation. We hiked around Mesquite Mountain and along Willow Canyon. No water, lots of cacti and brush, rough path in places and quite a few people. According to my hiking app on my iPhone we hiked 8.2 miles over 3. 45 hours ( with rest stops and lunch it was over 5 1/2 hours) with a pace between 21 minutes per mile to over 30 minutes per mile the last three miles. Imagine that!
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