Monday, May 25, 2015

Hike #42: Why?

When
Sunday, 2015-05-24
Where
Holbert Trail to Dobbins Lookout, South Mountain
Duration
1½ hours
Notable
First hike at South Mountain this year

Today, after the hike, I saw for the first time in my life a chicken crossing the road. Questions were asked.

Hike #41: Three hundred thirty hikes

When
Thursday, 2015-05-21
Where
Circumference hike around unnamed peak, from the 40th St Trailhead
Duration
½ hour
Notable

Every time I hike TwoBit Peak after work, I see an older man, sometimes alone and sometimes with a buddy or two, and every time wearing jeans and a cotton shirt that contrast with the REI plastic clothing the rest of us hikers wear.

Today I started at the trailhead at the same time as this man, and I asked him if he hikes everyday. His answer was yes, and that he hiked TwoBit about 330 times last year. This makes my own goal to do 100 hikes this year seem not so hard.

Hike #40: Snakes on a plain

When
Tuesday, 2015-05-19
Where
Unnamed, flattish loop hike, from the 40th St Trailhead
Duration
1 hour
Notable
First rattlesnake of the year, while hiking

Laura joined me on today's hike, and my snakeophile wife was pleased to encounter not one, but two rattlesnakes. The snakes were less pleased to see my wife.

The first rattler we heard before we saw, as it gave a quick two-count rattle before slithering under some brush and making every effort to blend in unseen. It looked well fed, and because the evening sun was dipping low on the horizon, it was probably done sunning and ready to find a warm place to stay for the night.

A fellow hiker alerted us to the second snake, which was shorter and thinner than the first. It slithered off the trail into some brush, but then coiled and watched my wife and me warily.

Ironically, two days prior, I told Canadian Fred that I had never seen a rattlesnake while hiking in the Phoenix area—a fact that was true at the time. Until then, my only encounters with rattlers had been while (1) hiking Pine Mountain north of the city and (2) road biking in north Scottsdale, where sometimes I see the snakes crossing the roads.

Hike #39: House Finch

When
Sunday, 2015-05-17
Where
Shadow Mountain, from the 28th St Trailhead
Duration
½ hour
Notable
Considerably less Achilles' tendon pain than last week

Today while running down the mountain, I noticed a house finch, calling from some brush. The house finch is another bird I would have assumed is non-native to the Phoenix area but is in fact native to the western United States.

Hike #38: Our friend to the north

When
Saturday, 2015-05-16
Where
Tempe ‘A’ Mountain
Duration
½ hour
Notable
First time to the ‘A’ Mountain this year

Today on the way up the mountain, Laura and I met Fred from Quebec City, a student who's spending his summer break traveling the western United States. He just started his trip, having spent a night in New York and one night couch-surfing in Phoenix.

Fred asked me where the good hiking in Phoenix is—the ‘A’ Mountain is a disappointment if you aim for more than a pleasant view of the ASU campus—and considering myself an expert on the topic, I told him about the local peaks and paths of the Greater Phoenix area and recommended hiking Camelback. This led to a discussion of how a non-driving Canadian should get from Tempe to Camelback. I again consider myself an expert on the topic—that is, taking public transportation from Tempe to Camelback, not Canadianness. The answer, for anyone interested, is to take the light rail, or bike, to 44th St and Washington, and from there take the #44 bus route to Tatum at MacDonald. The bus arrives every thirty minutes—about the length of time as the bus ride.

But it turns out there's a much quicker way to get there. It involves giving Fred a ride in your car, which is parked about a mile away from the ‘A’ Mountain, and dropping him off at the Camelback trailhead, which happens to be on the way home for Laura and me.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Hike #37: Tatum-to-40th-St

When
Friday, 2015-05-15
Where
Trail 100, from Tatum, to the 40th St Trailhead
Duration
½ hour
Notable
First point-to-point hike of the year

The logistics of a point-to-point hike are usually more complicated than of a loop hike—what with needing a vehicle at each trailhead—but today I brute-forced my way through those complications and did a point-to-point from the Tatum Trailhead to the 40th St Trailhead by walking with my bike.

Coinciding with my hike was a mountain biker going the same direction as me and who passed me early on in my hike, then whom I passed five minutes later while he was stopped and checking his phone, then who passed me again before I finally passed him near the end of my hike. The final time I passed him—he was again stopped and checking his phone—I told him he was averaging “walking speed.” He said the real riding would start Saturday morning.

Hike #36: Foot arch

When
Sunday, 2015-05-10
Where
Shadow Mountain, from the 28th St Trailhead
Duration
½ hour
Notable
Possibly overdid it today

I blame my latest onset of Achilles' tendinosis on a five-mile run I did around Tempe Town Lake a few weeks ago. I ran in my new pair of Xero Shoes, which is my latest phase in trying to undo a childhood of over-coddled, never-go-outside-without-shoes-on feet.

I can objectively say my feet have gotten stronger and the arches more arched. How? I've dropped a shoe size, having gone from 12 to 11½. If this sounds puzzling, consider that an additional lift of the foot arch effectively shortens the length of the foot, just like how the shortest distance between two points is not a healthy curve above the plantar fascia. I like to think of my newer, bigger arches as each giving me an additional ½-shoe-size-worth of natural shock absorption in my feet. But childhood deficiencies are hard to make up for.

Hike #35: Achilles' heel

When
Thursday, 2015-05-07
Where
TwoBit Peak, from the 40th St Trailhead
Duration
1 hour
Notable
Yet another trail run—easy stuff

Today's was another “hike extender,” though I have no streak to extend. Perhaps I'm trying to extend the Achilles' tendon in my left foot, which recently has flared with minor tendinosis. I consider myself something of an expert at Achilles' tendinosis, having gone through four, now five, occurrences of it. The key, I've learned, is being active without causing additional harm. Pure rest isn't as good as active rest. Fortunately for me with this latest flare-up, that includes hiking.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Hike #34: Debugging

When
Tuesday, 2015-05-05
Where
Trail #8 to the big hunk of quartz, from the 40th St Trailhead
Duration
1 hour
Notable
End of bee season?

What a change a week can make. The palo verde and mesquite blooms have gone away, and so have most bees and other flying insects. Bugs aren't fooled by the lower temperatures this week—summer is almost here.

Sunday, May 3, 2015

Hike #33: Another run

When
Thursday, 2015-04-30
Where
TwoBit Peak, from the 40th St Trailhead
Duration
1 hour
Notable
First bus+bike+hike of the year

Another late arrival to the trailhead, another trail run.

Hike #32: Run

When
Thursday, 2015-04-23
Where
TwoBit Peak, from the 40th St Trailhead
Duration
1 hour
Notable
First time to trail-run TwoBit almost in its entirety

Today, because I was late to arrive at the trailhead, I ran the entire trail excluding the stiff-upward-gradient portion—i.e., the part of the trail where running isn't much faster than walking. My final time was 45 minutes, which rounds up to 1 hour.

I'm pretty sure trail-running this trail would have been tough for me at the beginning of the year. Not cardiovascularly, but muscularly. However, after four months of hiking, I feel no soreness or fatigue the next day. Exercise diversity for the win!

Hike #31: Hole-in-the-Rock

When
Tuesday, 2015-04-21
Where
Hole-in-the-Rock, at Papago Park
Duration
½ hour
Notable
First time at Hole-in-the-Rock

Once again I met my wife at Papago after work. This time we started from the parking lot across the road, at the short trail that leads to Hole-in-the-Rock.

From the Hole, one has a good view of the downtowns of Phoenix and Tempe, as well as that region in between, the one most people call Sky Harbor International Airport. Phoenix is somewhat unusual for a big American city in that its airport is only a few miles away from its downtown.

This afternoon the planes were taking off towards the west and landing from the east. This is, I believe, typical. Also typical, I believe, is that these directions are flipped in the morning, with planes taking off towards the east and landing from the west. Why is this, I wonder? I suspect it's due to the shifting wind direction in the Valley, with the gentle morning breeze typically blowing from the east, and the afternoon wind blowing from the west. The daily wind-flip phenomenon is apparent to anyone who commutes to work by bike everyday—at least, after a few years of that person biking westward in the mornings and eastward in the afternoons and giving up that prevailing omni-tailwind to change jobs and residences and consequently to bike into an omni-headwind almost every day, twice a day. Anyway, pilots who are taking off or landing prefer, unlike cyclists, a headwind because it means the plane's relative speed to the ground is slower than if the wind is a tailwind.

Another possibility for the airplane flight patterns flipping midday is that the airlines take advantage of the efficiencies of an airport that's west of most other airports in the country. Most flights leaving Sky Harbor, I presume, are going eastward, and most flights arriving are coming westward. Furthermore, there probably are more departing flights in the morning and more arriving flights in the evening—excluding red-eyes, every flight departs earlier in the day than it arrives—so it might make sense to adjust the take-off and landing directions to facilitate this: i.e., in the morning take off towards the east and in the evening land from the east.

But the flight paths don't flip everyday, and that makes me think the main cause is something inconsistent and transient, something like wind direction.

Nevertheless, until I'm told by someone who knows what they're talking about, this is an open question here at Just Enough Craig.