To begin our Out West vacation my family and I flew into Phoenix, Arizona. Building up to the trip I would always check the weather of the locations that we would be stopping at and Phoenix was typically the one of the hottest parts of the country with an average of 100+ temperatures. To say we were forced to quickly acclimate is an understatement.
Our flight landed in Phoenix at 12:00 (MT) and we had the whole day to spend in the capital city of Arizona before heading off in the morning for our next stop, Sedona.
After a few hours at the pool my brother and I went to hike Camelback Mountain via the Echo Canyon Trail. We started the hike around 5:00, which was still extremely hot. The terrain for the trail starts off paved and with a slight incline but you quickly arrive at the tough part which is essentially rubble for the other 3/4ths of the trail. It made it interesting because there were hundreds of ways to scale the trail because of the variety of footholds.
We finally summited the mountain after about 45 minutes of hiking and stopping for photos and the view was spectacular. We had reached the summit with a half an hour to sunset, which casted some amazing light over the surrounding mountains and the city.
We left before the sun had set behind the rim of mountains so we had some light to guide us back down the rugged terrain. It was lucky we did because it took us a little longer to get down because of the technical footing required.
All in all, it was a great and tiring first day as we summited a 2,707 foot mountain with a 3.5 mile hike.
This song gives a great summer vibe and I thought it captured the start of this adventure perfectly.
(Above): This blew me away. Receding ridges of mountains at sunset.
(Above): The last rays of sunlight were like fingertips clinging to the rock as if it wanted to stick around for a little longer.