Over Camelback, Twice

It's probably the most popular hiking in the Phoenix area. Estimates are that over 300,000 people hike the trails on Camelback every year. (Here's a good site with more information on Camelback Mountain.)

Saturday Papa and I headed to Camelback and arrived about 9:15am. Too late. Parking was difficult to find. Our plan was to hike end to end to end, up over the mountain and back. We didn't want to add a couple miles addition to the hike because we had to park a distance from either trail head.

We opted to go back Sunday and get to the Summit Trail Head at sunrise. We arrived at 6:20am and slipped into one of the few remaining parking spots. Definitely a very popular area so plan on getting an early start.

It worked out well. We estimated that the hike would take us 8 hours (We're "Sunday afternoon" hikers. We take pictures, video and take frequent short breaks.) We finished in about that time, hiking up Summit, down Cholla, and back again.

We made two observations. First the disappointment at the number of people with loud music. We understand some people prefer to hike and listen to music and that's their choice. Those individuals who have ear buds and listen to music are applauded. The disappointment was several individuals who either didn't use ear buds or did use them and had the music so loud that we could hear the music before we saw the person.

Second the good side. Papa noticed it first. His comment, "It's interesting how the mountain equalizes everyone." We saw young children and senior citizens, in shape and kinda out of shape, and people from all over the world. Papa overheard a doctor at the summit talking on a phone, apparently to a nurse, about patient care. I didn't hear it or notice the man. On the mountain, you cannot tell if people are rich or poor, educated or not, white or blue collar, the mountain equalizes everyone.

Below is a video of little clips of our first pass over Camelback. Hopefully it gives a little idea of what the mountain's like.