Pheonix Arizona Hike - Saguaro Cactus

Here are a few pictures from a hike we took near Phoenix.  We saw hundreds of saguaro cactus and found some hieroglyphs.  Water and sunscreen were necessities.  I wouldn't attempt this hike any later in the season because of intense desert heat.

3 Memorable Hikes - Geocaching

For the first time, I made it all the way to Elephant Rock!  It's a three mile hike up Mueller Park Canyon.  Bill and I left about 5am, one summer morning, because neither of us could sleep.  Bikers were already on the trail, and some were coming down from Rudy's Flat, a spot above Elephant Rock.  We rested on the much appreciated bench at the top and took a few pictures of the view into Bountiful.

Another day we hiked up North Canyon.  It was much steeper so we only went about a mile and then turned around.  Bill remembered times when he took the Blazer Scouts overnight camping there.

At Powder Ridge Ski Resort, we hiked with family into Hidden Lake.  Along the way we saw five deer and several grouse (?).  Once at the lake, some had fun throwing rocks into the water, used by moose and deer as a drinking hole.  I hiked around the lip of the lake and located a Geocach box on the southwest side.  In it was a newspaper, a notebook, pencil and TP.  I wrote a note and felt a little thrill at having found a small treasure.  Here is some information about Geocaching:

Geocaching is an outdoor recreational activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS)receiver or mobile device^[2] and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world.

A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook where the geocacher enters the date they found it and signs it with their established code name. Larger containers such as plastic storage containers (Tupperwareor similar) or ammunition boxes can also contain items for trading, usually toys or trinkets of little value. Geocaching shares many aspects with benchmarking, trigpointing,orienteering, treasure-hunting, letterboxing, andwaymarking.

Geocaches are currently placed in over 200 countries^{[citation needed]} around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica,^[3] and the International Space Station.^[4] After more than 12 years of activity there are over 1.8 million active geocaches published on variouswebsites^[5]. There are over 5 million geocachers worldwide.^[6]

Stewart Falls - Hiking

I have successfully talked Bill into taking several hikes with me this summer.  There are many areas we have never been in these beautiful mountains.  And I am not yet willing to accept the possibility that we don't have the youth or strength to get there.  So, our first hike was to Stewart Falls, near Sundance Ski Resort in Utah County.  Everyone, it seemed, passed us on the trail; children, adults packing children, youth, senior adults, and dogs.  But, I kept telling myself it wasn't a race, and we could take it at whatever pace we needed.

By the time we reached the falls, we stepped across the stream and happily found a small spot of shade where we ate the sandwiches we brought.  One of the hikers suggested we get our clothes wet before hiking back.  We didn't hesitate to completely douse our hats, shirts, shorts and shoes.  It helped us tolerate the heat of midday, even though much of the hike was in shade, and taught us that our next attempted hike would be started much earlier in the morning.  This moderate hike was well worth the accomplishment of the four mile roundtrip journey.  I loved the sights and smells of the pines and wild flowers, and I found satisfaction in my accomplishment.