Second Summit Achieved: North Mountain

The kids and I packed our camelbacks and snacks for our second hike to a summit around Phoenix: North Mountain. I discovered while hiking that Shadow Mountain, Lookout Mountain, North Moutain and Shaw Butte are all pretty close together. This time, we invited two other families to join us.

One family I met a year ago the Veritas homeschool group when they moved to Arizona from South Carolina. We actually live no more than ten minutes away from each other, walking at a six year-old's pace. She has three kids roughly the same ages as John, Kyle and Jessi. We have been getting together since August for a little group P.E. in a nearby park. Kyle and her middle boy are fast friends and are playing baseball together on the same team. Elizabeth has found a kindred artistic spirit in her oldest son, who is Jessi's age and Jessi and her young daughter like to play together and Jessi gets her Barbie fix at their house.

The other family I met through two different families. She emailed me in the winter with a list of prayer requests for a family we know whose wife was going through breast cancer surgery. I knew the woman, a busy mommy through a Bible study that we had attended and she had a Boy Scout connection. A week later, I actually met her when I helped a mom in my homeschooling group run a garage sale to help her raise funds to go to Africa to see the sons that she "adopted" living in an Ethiopian-run orphanage. Since then, I started to consistently run into her in our church and she decided to join the homeschooling group. Isn't it funny how God throws people together?

The hike started out cool and cloudy with a bit of a wind. Since the beginning of April, temperatures had taken a twenty degree dip, which was actually welcoming. However, a couple of my kids complained about being cold in their short sleeved shirts (don't laugh, you Minnesotans and Chicagoans! Don't cry either.) However, the sun soon burst out from behind the clouds and those wearing coats soon gave them to their moms because they became too hot. The start of the trail was steep but wide and soon turned into an aging road that led almost to the summit. The summit is actually being used for micro-wave extenders and cell phone towers. The trail seemed to end there, though a small, round, sun faded sign indicated another trail that looked more like a foot trail than a groomed trail. However, it took us down, winding around boulders, making us sit down sometimes to get to the next ledge (for those of us with short legs or weak knees). Most of it was rocky, though there were a few times when it became those little small pebbles that can easily cause you to land on your derrier. There were at least a few times when I wondered if I lost a marble or two to let my kids scramble down the steep path with a drop off so close that would lead to certain damage if they slipped off it. Plus, I had heard from a mom at our P.E. class that this is the time when hibernating snakes, grumpy and starving, come out of hiding for the first time all winter. However, the kids kept their footing and we didn't see any snakes, at least on that hike. The only potential problem came when one child, terrified of bees, encountered bees flying too close to the path. The kids all seemed to hit it off and the moms who didn't know each other got to know each other better. A fun time was had by all. I hope you enjoy the "movie" I put together.

Tom Thumb is not as easy as it looks

This morning, we all piled into the van to climb Pinnacle Peak. Unfortunately, the trail was closed on account of swarms of attacking bees (no, not the killer bees, just really irritated bees). However, the warden was very helpful and told us about another trail nearby that went up to the top of "Tom Thumb", a really cool rock formation. If you have watched Veggie Tales' "The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Movie", the area looks a little like the rock monster island with more sand poured over the rock formations. The boulders are all metamorphic rock (thanks H.A.M.I.C. geology studies!). To get to the start of Tom Thumb trail, you have to go on a dirt road, which reminded me of Kyle's newest song, "Rock and Roll on a Bad Road", beecause that is what we did. I think Eric had fun driving on it, though we had to be careful of washouts and huge dips that still caused us to bottom out a few times. The kids were great. At the beginning of the trail, John told a guy passing us, "I will never get tired." He changed his tune. Trail statistics: It took us 90 minutes to hike 2.6 miles with an elevation gain of 700 feet (thanks to Eric's GPS program on his phone). We saw lizards, a hummingbird (I think), lots of ants and lots of little flies that reminded me of the little flying bugs in "Cars". The flies were annoying, but at least they didn't bite--just tickle. The trail had places with loose gravel that made it tricky to go up and even trickier going down. On the way down, Elizabeth slipped and fell once, Jessi and Kyle each slipped and fell three times and John slipped and fell too many times to count (I think he liked it because Eric was holding his hand and didn't let him get hurt). John also confessed to getting tired at one point. We did not make it to the summit of Tom's Thumb. Our water was half gone, the kids were really tired, and a couple on their way back said that the trail got pretty steep near the end, which made us decide to turn around with Tom Thumb's peak in site.

The views were fabulous, both up close and panoramic. Unfortunately, we did not bring a camera, so we only took a couple of pictures with Eric's camera. All in all, it was a great adventure. Who needs to be in "The Amazing Race" when you can create your own road blocks :-).