On Saturday, my hiking trio (my SAT–self-appointed trainer–Ian, and myself) drove up to Payson to hike the Barnhardt trail. My longtime blog followers may recognize that name; it was only in January when we summitted Mazatzal Peak. Part of that hike included the Barnhardt trail, but unfortunately, we only got to experience the trail at the end of our hike, which meant a lot of what we saw looked like this:

My memories of Mazatzal Peak are not warm and fuzzy. They are cold, painful, and bring tears to my eyes. In an attempt to exorcise those unpleasant memories and to create new, positive ones of the Barnhardt trail, I suggested we hike the Barnhardt trail in daylight.

We started on the trail around 7:45am and the temperature was in the mid 70sF. It was still fairly humid, though, so I wasn’t feeling as cool as I would have liked. The trail is very pretty and we saw lush green vegetation all around us, due to the recent rains. We even saw some gorgeous butterflies enjoying the breeze. For the record, we did NOT see any gorgeous butterflies the last time we hiked this trail.

Beautiful butterfly on Ian’s sock.

SO GREEN!

Pretty sky.

More green.

I like the colour contrast between the green vegetation and red rocks.

I’m not sure how far we went, as there is no summit point for the Barnhardt trail (this trail connects up with numerous other trails but does not lead up to Mazatzal Peak or any other peak), but according to Ian’s phone GPS, when we were almost at 6000 ft, the humidity was gone, leaving nothing but fantastic temperatures with a lovely breeze. Don’t forget the pretty views! I think we probably hiked about 4 to 4.5 miles when we decided to stop for a quick snack break before heading back down to the car.

Panoramic view.

My Coke says it all.

A strange fruit we saw on a bush where we stopped for a snack.

Required selfie.

A cool grotto off to the side of the trail near our snack spot.

Did this hike erase my previous memories of the Barnhardt trail? No, not really. While hiking, I couldn’t help compare my previous and current experiences:

• darkness vs light;
• cold vs warm(er);
• painful vs pleasant;
• lost vs not lost;
• no Coke vs Coke;
• no one read the hike description vs I read the hike description; and
• angry/in despair/scared vs happy knowing that our lives were not in danger (that is not a joke).*

In any case, I enjoyed THIS hike on the Barnhardt trail and am looking forward to Phoenix’s winter and all the great hiking that awaits us!

*I suppose I still harbour some bitterness.