Long post ahead! For the short version, here’s the summary: “No pain, no (elevation) gain.” 🙂

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Way back in September, I mentioned that I was starting to organize my DIY version of the Phoenix 7 Summit Challenge. I’m so very happy to report that my hardy band of hikers successfully completed the challenge this weekend. Who knew I had so many friends who like to spend their free time hurting themselves?

For those unfamiliar with the summit challenge, the purpose is to hike 7 different summits in Phoenix in one day. The day is like a pub crawl, except instead of driving to different pubs to drink different drinks over the course of a night, hikers drive to different trailheads to hike numerous trails over the course of an entire day. Which sounds more fun to you, my dear readers? 😉

The hikes range in length from 2.8 miles to 5 miles and elevation gain per hike varies from 340 feet to 1000 feet. At first glance, the idea of doing the complete summit challenge seems doable…until you get to hike #6 and your brain is thinking more of the food you want/need instead of moving your feet step by painful step. But, I digress. Total cumulative distance for all 7 hikes is 25 miles and total elevation gain is 5000 feet (1524 metres, for my Canadian friends).

Now that the details are out of the way, I’ll get into a play-by-play of the day (yes, rhyming is intentional):

• Alarm goes off at 4:30am. Groan, shut off alarm, stumble out of bed. Be thankful I packed up everything the night before. Too bad my SAT (aka, “Self-appointed trainer”/husband) didn’t. Watch my SAT scramble to get his stuff together, as usual. Get annoyed.
• Leave home at 5:07am for the first trailhead/meeting place: Apache Wash, way north in Cave Creek. Arrive there at 5:45am.
• After making sure everyone is present, headlamps are working, and trail located, my valiant group of 9 hikers starts our day-long adventure shortly after 6am.

• The Apache Wash trailhead is where our first 2 hikes occur (Apache Vista and Ridgeback Overlook). Both of these hikes are pretty gentle and are a good way to warmup. (It is possible that the “friendliness” of these first 2 hikes is a little misleading….but I’ll get to that later.) One of my personal highlights of the day was seeing all the colorful hot-air balloons:

Silhoutted hot-air balloon.

So cool!

I felt like we could almost jump into the balloons!

Second summit selfie.

• Drive to the 3rd trailhead, Deem Hills. Stuff face with food during drive. Arrive at the trailhead, use the restrooms, get the backpacks organized, and start hike #3. Observations: Deem Hills has a great dog park! Also, because we were now hiking in full daylight, we could see a TON of caterpillars on the trail. Not sure if there were that many caterpillars on the previous 2 trails, since we didn’t have as much light, but wow, we sure saw a lot of those critters.

• Hike #4 is Lookout Mountain and it is aptly named. The summit gave us fantastic views of the city (i.e. “lookout”). I liked the tiny little scramble to the top–thank you, palo verde tree for providing a strong foothold! This hike started off nice and flat….then it became vertical. At this point, I remember thinking how long ago the Apache Wash hikes were (and how gentle and lovely and easy they were…). I believe we finished hike #4 just after 12 noon.

#4 conquered! (Megan was already on the way down at this point!)

Views from the summit of Lookout Mtn.

Another summit view.

A 3rd summit view.

• OK. So, hike #5, Shaw Butte, felt really hard to me. Maybe it’s because I already hiked 4 hikes by this point? Or, maybe the driving around gives me enough time to stiffen up (getting old isn’t fun!!)? Whatever the case may be, my legs weren’t happy with most of the Shaw Butte hike, mainly because the trail consisted of a(n) (annoying) gravel road that was fairly steep. I think this hike was when most of us started talking about what we wanted to eat when we finished the day (burgers and fries was the #1 answer, with the #2 answer being “food”).

We’re still smiling…at least on the outside…

Look at the city!

• I think hike #6, Dreamy Draw, is the prettiest one. We were a tad confused about which trail to take (wasn’t super clear on our trail map), but our “walking GPS,” i.e. Skyler (he made gpx files for his GPS), led us to our goal. I’d like to come back and explore a bit more because what I saw was really nice.

Thankfully, this sign was NOT applicable!

Pretty green everywhere.

Summit block.

• FINALLY. Hike #7, Holbert trail in South Mountain. Honestly, I think we were deep in the “grin and bear it” stage. We were in the home stretch. It was about 4:30pm when we started our last hike and we were tired and sore and questioning (again) our decision to do this challenge. But, we soldiered on. The Holbert trail is essentially a long staircase; the trail is rocky and features SO MANY BIG STEPS. Not gonna lie, I was getting mad at the trail for having so many big steps. Yes, I realize the previous sentence makes no sense….I mean, why should I get angry at an inanimate trail? (Answer: because I could and because I was tired of feeling tired.) However, since this challenge was my idea, I needed to pretend to be positive. (I think that worked.) Sooner than I thought, we reached the summit of our last hike and were rewarded by some great views.

7 tired hikers at the top of the 7th summit. Back row, L to R: Mark, Skyler, Jodey, Stevo, John. Front row: Megan, Karen.

Sunset is starting.

Dobbin’s Lookout (stone house)

The hike back down to the trailhead was slow and painful, mainly because it was getting dark and because of those DUMB BIG STEPS. I started singing that classic motivational song “99 Bottles of Beer,” but that didn’t have the intended motivational effect I hoped (sorry Jodey and John! I tried!).

Phoenix’s night lights.

Skyler and Megan saw a scorpion on the way down!

Just before 7pm, the group stumbled back to the cars, grateful to be alive…er, very happy to be done. We mustered up the energy to take one last group selfie and to decide upon a place to get food:

The best part of a long day playing outside is the food you get to inhale afterwards. In our case, we drove straight to a nearby Five Guys for burgers, fries (!!!), and milkshakes. Heaven.

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Would I do anything differently?

*Before I answer the above question, I want to say that most of the group WANTS TO DO THIS AGAIN. I think I have an annual event on my hands!

Did I learn anything for next time? Yes. In no particular order:

1. I can eat really fast.–I wolfed down food during the drives in between the hikes. I surprised myself.
2. Bring blister tape, or bandaids.–I got a blister, nothing major, but a little uncomfortable.
3. Make transition times shorter.–By “transition times,” I mean the time in between the hikes. Maximize the drive: eat your food (see point #1), hydrate, get whatever you may want/need packed in your backpack. When you arrive at the next trailhead, go to the restroom as soon as you get there, not after everyone else has. Basically, think ahead about what you need to do and do it quickly. I’m not sure how much time was lost due to transitioning from hike to car to next hike, but I’m pretty certain transition time can be cut down, which would make the whole day shorter (and food acquisition earlier).
4. I think I’d rather do my DIY version of the summit challenge!–I’d rather drive around and hike with fewer people on the road/trails.
5. If possible, schedule next year’s summit crawl during a long weekend.–It’s so nice to have an extra day to recover and relax!
6. Prepare my own GPS maps.–I was lucky this year because Skyler did all that. But, what if there’s no Skyler next year? I can’t assume that someone else will do that. Note to self: PREP MY OWN GPS MAPS.
7. Bake more pumpkin bread.–I made some pumpkin bread for the group. They liked it. 🙂

Who’s in next year?