Arizona Trip Part 1, Picacho Peak

I just completed a week-long vacation in Arizona. The main purpose was to get another night at Kitt Peak National Observatory for their Advanced Observing Program. I’ll blog thoroughly about that later, but I wanted to share some pictures and thoughts from the other stuff I did. You may click any picture for a higher-res version. (Warning: Some of the hi-res files are huge).

The last time I was in Arizona, I was driving from Phoenix to Tucson, admiring the view, and trying to find a place to stop off for some pictures. About halfway, I saw an awesome-looking mountain on the right side of the road, and decided to pull over. It’s called Picacho Peak and is absolutely gorgeous.

Picacho Peak is on the left. Not seen here is a small peak further to the left. You can’t hike to the top of it, but you can hike around it and get nice views of the desert. It’s only about a mile. The peak itself is at 3,374 feet and is either a 2- or 3-mile hike depending on which trail you take. We decided on the Hunter Trail, which was about 2 miles. The other trail (Sunset Vista) is longer, but less strenuous. It follows a gradual slope up the right side of the mountain.

The first part of the trail involves hiking up to the mountain face. This is quite challenging as it’s basically a “path of steepest ascent” climb.

From here, you hike around the rock face to the saddle point between the two larger peaks.

The next part was very challenging. You climb down about 300 feet around the back side of the mountain using cables. I decided to turn back once I got to the bottom of this drop, mainly out of exhaustion. I don’t do a lot of hikes, so I wasn’t incredibly well-prepared for this one. I wish I had done it before going down 300 feet though, cause going back up was very strenuous. My friend made it to the summit. Here are some of his pics:

While the hike back down was easier, once I got to the saddle, I was still very tired. My legs were very wobbly! Wish I could’ve gotten to the top. We were needing to leave to head up to Kitt Peak and I didn’t want to slow my friend down. He figured he could make it to the top pretty quickly, and he did.

The next post will be about the Grand Canyon.