Hidden Valley

Hiking makes one hungry. Hungry for meat. Thankfully there was Joe's BBQ in Gilbert. The meat and sauces were amazing!

Our next stop of the day was the Mormon Trail to Hidden Valley on South Mountain.

As soon as we started it was pretty obvious that they used the word "trail" loosely...

It was really more like a giant pile of rocks with a sort of strip of clearing to follow that wasn't always there to follow...

It was also quite steep!

When we got to the top, we explored Hidden Valley.

At first, the trail was pretty easy to see...

Then it, once again, sort of disappeared into the rocks...

Then it was just rocks all the way to Fat Man Pass...

After that, it should have been easy.  But it wasn't.

the woodpecker should have told us we were on the wrong trail

It was at this point that we started to come up on lots of mountain bikers. It was also at this point that we realized we weren't heading back down the Mormon Trail. Thankfully, we backtracked to the start of the Hidden Valley trail and made our way down the mountain. Unfortunately, this little adventure took a bit longer than we had anticipated and we missed having dinner with out gracious hosts. :( 

The sun was going down and we met tons of people heading up the mountain to watch the sunset. It was tempting to stay but we were pretty exhausted.

The view made us realize how very much in the middle of the city we really were.

A homemade dinner and a comfy bed were just what we needed. 

Hieroglyphic Trail

On the south side of town in a little community called Gold Canyon in the Superstition Mountains is a trail called the Hieroglyphic Trail. It hikes up through the desert to a little canyon with petroglyphs on the cliffs. The trail head was a bit tricky to find but thankfully the woman at the tourist info center at the local mini storage was able to give us directions. :) 

 

Whoever said the desert in Arizona is just dirty and brown and ugly has never really been there...

It rained a bit on us while we walked but not enough to deter us from our goal...

The closer we got to the canyon the more rock formations and giant saguaros! 

It takes 70 years for a saguaro to reach only 6 and a half feet tall and produce their first flowers. It takes 95-100 years to reach 15-16 feet and grow their first "arm." If that's true than these suckers are OLD!!!

This one is old and holey! 

The boulder-filled canyon at the end of the trail was an important site for the Hohokam Indians that lived in this area up to 1500 years ago. 

Hundreds of petroglyphs are carved into the rock here.

The best part is that you can get right up close to them!

There are also pools here nearly year round...

Some of the large boulders formed a sort of cave to "explore"...

Just as we were leaving the cave and heading back down it started to rain. Then the "rain" began to bounce off the rocks. It was hailing! Not the best conditions for climbing over giant bare rocks. But ti didn't last but a minute or two and then the sun peeked out again...

What a beautiful hike!