Scott's Peak (on Fort Huachuca)
Short but steep
So it’s New Year’s day and you’d like to start 2024 at the top of a mountain, but you recognize that your (lack of) activity over the past couple of months might make that goal a bit of challenge.
What to do?
Well fortunately for us, there is a named peak here in the Huachuca mountains that is only a short hike to the top.
Scott’s Peak (AllTrails map)
I love hiking under cool looking clouds
I thought this sounded just about right for our current level of fitness. A 1.5 mile round trip, with an almost 700 foot elevation gain. If anything I was a bit worried that Kelly might not consider this enough of a challenge to count as an actual peak.
As it turns out, this was not just an easy “walk in the park”.
There is a dirt road that goes from the parking lot all the way to the top. But what surprised us a little bit was the fact that it wasn’t just steep, it was VERY STEEP in places. We did not feel like we cheated at all doing such a relatively short hike.
The other pleasant surprise was when we got to the top. There were some very nice nearly 360 degree views of the surrounding landscape and mountain ranges.
I provide weather forecasts for this little airfield
Also, about halfway up the trail, Kelly had spied this tower just to the left of our destination. She told me that if there was a path, and no “no trespassing” signs she was going to climb it. I knew better than to object. And climb it she did …
Kelly at the top of the tower
We spent a good 25-30 minutes walking around exploring and taking pictures at the top, then we started back on the way down. Oh yea, did I mention that it was really steep?
As you can see in the video, Kelly was slipping and sliding a little bit. I somehow had the foresight to go find myself a nice stick while we were up at the top.
Without that stick on the way down, I would have fallen on my butt at least half a dozen times.
Switching gears …
When we first got up on New Year’s morning, I wasn’t completely sure that this was even something we were actually going to do. It had been a very stressful couple of weeks … Back on the 13th of December, four of our teenage kids got in the car to go to a friend’s house about a mile away. On the way back, they took a short-cut through a park and somehow managed to run right into a tree.
The remains of our kid’s SUV after their crash
Two of them (who were on the passenger side) were lucky enough to walk away from the scene with just a couple of scratches and a busted lip. The two on the driver’s side didn’t fair quite as well (although in the scheme of things, we all got Very Lucky). One was in the hospital for 4 days and one for 6 days. Their injuries were serious enough to require surgeries, but were thankfully not life threatening. Both kids are well on the road to recovery, and we actually had a pretty good Christmas. That said, this 2+ hour hike was Kelly’s first time away from the kids for any significant length of time since the accident.
The kids were fine at home without us, and this hike was definitely what we both needed.
We aren’t doing any sort of a hiking challenge (for miles or number of hikes or anything like that) this year. But my Google Calendar does have “hiking” every Sunday for the rest of the year.
Some might be short and easy, but some certainly have the potential to be epic.
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Til next time,
Todd