Peralta Trail

Greg and I went on a hike while he was on his Christmas vacation.

We decided to try the Peralta Trail.

I've done it before, and it's a biggie - four miles in and four miles out . . . 

which doesn't sound like much, but it's pretty steep.

When we left in the morning, there were ice crystals on Greg's truck!

Greg had to use his scraper (it's not used to much of a workout, since we live in Arizona, but we were glad it was up to the challenge!)

This is the Lost Dutchman State Park.  I have climbed up to that little bump near the cliff on the left-hand side of the mountain!

If you look closely, you can see snow up there!

Here's some more snow on the top of more mountains in the Superstition range.

I was feeling happy!

Look at allllll these Saguaros!

The trailhead is at the end of a looong, very rutted and bumpy trail.

But we made it!

"this surface is not regularly maintained" - that's for sure!

And once we got there, the sky was gorgeous and the rocks were beautiful.

That's Greg in that little needle!

And there's me!

We saw some holly along the way!

And then we ran into SNOW on the slopes!

But it was warm enough for shirt sleeves.

We didn't go all the way to the top because I don't have quite that much stamina yet (after being ill for a while with Crohn's stuff and recently a bad cold) and because we got to a place where there was ice on the path and Greg wanted to keep us safe (thanks, stud!)

On the way down, it got chilly again as the breeze kicked up and our sweat dried off.

 A beautiful view behind me down the canyon:

We'll be back, Peralta Trail!