Friday, March 6, 2009

Picacho Peak State Park, AZ

We reluctantly left Gilbert Ray yesterday and headed about 40 miles NW to this state park. It is pretty close to I-10 and a busy railroad track for Union Pacific. However, not too close.

Picacho Peak is a landmark that has been used for hundreds of years according to the park literature. They state that it was used in prehistoric times. Of course, I asked the question, how would they know since it was pre-history.

Anyway, we took the Sunset Vista trail today. It is 6.2 miles roundtrip. The first couple of miles are fairly easy. However, there is about 1800 feet of elevation gain and a good portion is in the last half mile. At several locations they have installed steel cables and a board here and there.

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This first photo is the first real challenge. You climb maybe a 100 feet. Gayle managed to talk herself into climbing this after a 76 year old guy came down. She didn’t make it through the next cable set up so I finished the climb. I have to say it was the most challenging climb I have ever made and I would not have considered it without the aids they installed.

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The last one is the section that stopped Gayle. You can’t see all of the cable because this comes around a bend.

Views at the top were great and 360 degrees.

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If you look off in the distance in this photo you can make out our campground.

Finally, here is Gayle coming down. I was proud of her.

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Finally, here is a sunset from last night.

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I have uploaded all the photos I took here today to our Picasa web page. So if you want to see more click the link in the top left of this page.

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