Piestwa Peak - Summit trail

May 30 - Piestwa Peak (aka Squaw Peak ) - Summit Trail (2.5 miles RT, 1200 ft elevation gain)

Squaw peak is one of the popular urban hiking park in phoenix. It offers multiple trails for hikers with differents levels of dififculty. I chose to do the most difficult one to get some good workout.

I started the hike at 5.50 AM. It was still nice and cool, though the bright sun was out. I think there are two advantages of starting early, you have nice weather and you get to find parking easily on these super popular hikes.

I would say the Summit trail is like a stairmaster from the first step. You just keep climbing steps paved in rocks with few flat areas here and there. The trail was already very busy with lot of solo hikers. At places it felt like we were all soldiers marching up a fort with a mission :)

I am mostly huffing and puffing on my climb up on any hike of this difficulty but I have to say I saw lot of fellow hikers huffing and puffing on this trail than in any other hike (of course other than camel back mountain, none of the other trails are this crowded too).

Since the sun was already out, it was getting warm but still very well manageable. The gentle breeze now and then was heavenly :).

I reached the top in 50 min. You get views of the peaks surrounding phoenix (south mountain etc). I took my time to enjoy the sounds of nature (birdings chirping) and meditated for few minutes :).

The way down is always a piece of cake for me. I was back in the parking lot in 40 min.

It was a good satisfying workout in a decent time :). I was happy to give my parking spot to the car waiting in line for a parking spot. Its interesting to see that there are enough people who dare to do the hike in the sun.

I was home by 8 AM. Good timing :)