South Mountain - Telegraph Pass

June 5 - Telegraph Pass (3 miles, ~500 ft elevation gain)

Telegraph pass in South mountain is one of our favorite hikes and we have a lot of memories associated with it. This was Rishi's first hike and I have taken a lot of friends here over time.

Weather forecast for today – 107 F (high). I was not really sure how would it be in the morning so I decided to do a familiar trail.

I was at the trailhead by 5.15 AM and got an early start. It was still nice and cool. There was no breeze though, so that made the hike up little difficult and warm. Once I reached the top, I continued further on the West National trail to the ramada. The ramada is a good place to rest with lot of shade. I had my snack and enjoyed the early morning quite time. I saw few hikers going further so I decided to continue and reached the top most point on the trail and started to descend from there on.

This trail is in Ahwatukee so the drive to the trailhead is nice and you get views of the surrounding neighbourhood and the moutains in distance.

One thing which bothers me on this trail is there are many hikers who bring there dogs. I am scared of dogs so I get very uncomfortable when someone has a dog which is not leashed.

It was going to hit 107 today, so I was not really sure how hot it would be in the morning. The weather was pleasant enough through out the hike.