Hannah the hiker

I have been in Phoenix for a little over four months now. I can honestly say that I am spending more time on trails out here than I did in New York. Most of the time I am hiking some of the trails right near my apartment, but I have ventured out a little bit to discover more of what the city has to offer. Two of my friends wanted to go for a hike a couple weeks ago so I tagged along!

We set out to do Piestewa Peak. Piestewa Peak is a pretty popular trail here because it has amazing views of the city, and the trail is relatively short. It is about 2 miles with around 1200 feet in elevation gain. We planned to do a sunset hike so we left the trailhead around 5:30 pm. Parking was easy to find but I can imagine this place gets pretty busy as there are a couple of trails nearby. There is also a water fountain and bathroom at the trailhead.

Even though it was the end of September, it was still very hot out. We brought water with us and drank lots of it. The trail was very easy to follow. Nearly the whole trail is just a series of switchbacks as you are navigating up to the peak. The trail is also pretty wide in spots so people can easily pass by you, or you could stop each time and use it as a good excuse for a water break.

It took us about 40 minutes to get to the top, because we took our time moving upwards.

The peak itself has great views of the city. Even though we watched the sunset on our walk up and not exactly at the peak, it was still a fantastic view. We saw all the lights of traffic and buildings. We stayed up at the top talking and soaking up the sight for a while. We saw a ringtail too! A ringtail is a mammal that looks a lot like a lemur, that’s what I thought it was when we first saw it. It walked near us a couple of times but I never took a good photo of it.

After a while we decided it would be a good idea to head back down. At this point it was around 7:45 pm. It was dark, but thankfully I brought my head lamp. We took our time heading down and taking extra care not to trip over anything. The walk down was quite a bit faster than the way up, naturally.

When we got back to the car we decided to celebrate by going out for some tacos and ice cream.

The trail in total is about 2 miles with 1200 feet of elevation gain. I would definitely opt to go in cooler weather as there is no shade on the entire trail. Sunset or sunrise would be spectacular at the peak. I just brought along my water bottle, headlamp, granola bar, and cell-phone. You would really only need those things and some sneakers as it is not a super rocky or rugged terrain. I would not say this is the best trail for beginners though as it is very steep.