As the temperatures soar past 100 degrees here in the East Valley, it was time to make a quick get away and head to an area with cooler temps. Pinetop, Arizona in the White Mountains was the destination. Pat and I left Friday after work and planned a hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains for Saturday. It took a little over 3 hours to get there on a windy mountain road, the elevation is over 6,000 feet and the temperature was perfect for me. Saturday AM it was 55 degrees when we started hiking and by the time we finished it was near 80. We hiked an 8.5 mile loop trail which wound through the pine trees of the Apache National Forest. We lost the trail at some point about halfway through and walked along a forest road that was probably a shortcut, by this time it was sunny and hot for me and I was worn out and exhausted. After the hike a stop at Red Devil Pizza for lunch then the long drive back home.
The beautiful town of Pinetop-Lakeside
This was the original jailhouse moved to a location in town for preservation. It also doubles as Santa's house at Christmas.
All ready to start the hike.
This was pretty much the view the entire hike.
Geocache number 1, found under a pile of rocks.
Geocache number 2, found under a pile of rocks.
Sensing a theme here?
Geocache number 3, was found under a pile of rocks.
More trees
Somewhere soon after this sign we lost the trail. The trail was very hard to walk on, it had a lot of rocks and I had to walk with my head down, watching where I was stepping as I kept tripping over the rocks. Not that I would have noticed anyway. it was nice to get away if only for a day.
No comments:
Post a Comment