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| Greg and I atop Picacho Peak. |
On my first full day in Arizona, I joined my host Greg and his friends Todd, Laura and Mike for a drive south on the 10. During my previous two trips to the state, I had driven past the mysterious and appealing pointy mountain just off the highway about an hour south of Phoenix. I had dreamed about scaling its steepness. Now, it was happening. We were on our way to hike Picacho Peak, deemed “one of the more challenging short hikes in Arizona.”
The hike up Picacho is only 2 miles, but it’s made tricky by two things: 1) Very steep pitches that require gripping cables with your hands; 2) A mid-hike descent that takes you back, almost, to the elevation at which you started the hike! The first mile of the hike twisted up a bare, rocky hillside to a saddle in between the peak to the left (which we couldn’t see) and a small stub of a mountain to the right. Then things got interesting. The trail immediately knifed downward — dropping hundreds of feet in just a few minutes of hiking. As we slowly made our way down the smooth, red rock, holding onto a waist-high cable was often necessary.
We were circling the mountain. Seriously. After the descent, we were on the backside of the side of the peak we had started on. We passed the junction for the Sunset Vista Trail, an easier 3.1-mile ascent of the peak, and started hiking up … again. The trail followed this pattern: A section of moderate hiking over rock and scree, followed by an extremely steep pitch that required holding onto a cable to boost yourself up. I was impressed with the number of people we saw on the trail — even two kids who couldn’t have been older than 6 or 7, and a dog. This was no easy ascent.
After about the fifth cable climb, we gained a flat section of the trail where we could look down on the side of the mountain where we had started and Greg’s Mercury Mountaineer some 1,000-plus feet below. We had come full circle. Literally. From there, we traversed a few relatively easy switchbacks to the peak, which offered 360-degree views. We could see the Catalina range to the south, large squares of green grass surrounded by a lot of desert, and other random peaks. It was quite the spectacle.
We made the return trip in less than an hour and were back in Phoenix to watch a little football and attend that evening’s Nuggets-Suns game in downtown. We were warmed up and ready for the Grand Canyon.
The hike up Picacho is only 2 miles, but it’s made tricky by two things: 1) Very steep pitches that require gripping cables with your hands; 2) A mid-hike descent that takes you back, almost, to the elevation at which you started the hike! The first mile of the hike twisted up a bare, rocky hillside to a saddle in between the peak to the left (which we couldn’t see) and a small stub of a mountain to the right. Then things got interesting. The trail immediately knifed downward — dropping hundreds of feet in just a few minutes of hiking. As we slowly made our way down the smooth, red rock, holding onto a waist-high cable was often necessary.
We were circling the mountain. Seriously. After the descent, we were on the backside of the side of the peak we had started on. We passed the junction for the Sunset Vista Trail, an easier 3.1-mile ascent of the peak, and started hiking up … again. The trail followed this pattern: A section of moderate hiking over rock and scree, followed by an extremely steep pitch that required holding onto a cable to boost yourself up. I was impressed with the number of people we saw on the trail — even two kids who couldn’t have been older than 6 or 7, and a dog. This was no easy ascent.
After about the fifth cable climb, we gained a flat section of the trail where we could look down on the side of the mountain where we had started and Greg’s Mercury Mountaineer some 1,000-plus feet below. We had come full circle. Literally. From there, we traversed a few relatively easy switchbacks to the peak, which offered 360-degree views. We could see the Catalina range to the south, large squares of green grass surrounded by a lot of desert, and other random peaks. It was quite the spectacle.
We made the return trip in less than an hour and were back in Phoenix to watch a little football and attend that evening’s Nuggets-Suns game in downtown. We were warmed up and ready for the Grand Canyon.
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