Today's hike is one of my favorites in the Phoenix area: the Piestewa Circumference Trail, officially named Trail #302. The trail leads around the mountain instead of up it, and it has much less foot traffic than the Summit Trail.
For the second time in January, I discovered a bunch of birthday balloons littering the desert landscape. This time I picked them up and packed them out, unlike what I did with the balloons I discovered while on hike #1. My good deed took some work, too. I trail-blazed up a steep gradient over loose rocks and around some scraggly brush to get to the balloons, and then I used my pocket knife to untangle them from a bush.
The helium once filling the balloons is the second-most abundant element in the universe, the first being hydrogen. Nevertheless, helium is a precious and nonrenewable resource. This is because helium is lightweight and nonreactive, two qualities that together cause the gas to rise out of the earth's atmosphere when released into the air. We get our helium just like we get natural gas, by drilling into rock. Most of the helium below the surface of the earth is a result of the natural radioactive decay of uranium and other unstable elements—the same radioactive decay that probably keeps the earth from being a frozen rock incapable of supporting life.
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