When we arrived on site on Monday, the entire rest of the day got used up in zoom meetings, phone calls and emails trying to straighten out some issues with another job. By the time we got done with that mess, it was almost 5 pm and the day was lost to us.
So we decided to take up the offer of one of the camp staff members and go for a short hike that promised great sunset views. They have been trying to get us to do this for over a month, and we just haven’t had the time. Seeing as this day was lost to us work-wise, we might as well do something fun.
First we drove the Ranger up the road an eighth of a mile or so to his cabin-he owns one of only about 8 private properties hidden away in this little paradise.
In true hiking purest form, we had a pre hike meeting on his cabin deck, and had a couple of beers and some cheese and crackers. Jokes were told, exaggerated tales of all our misadventures were exchanged. 😄😄
After a proper pre-hiking beer buzz was accomplished, we began our trek to higher ground to check out the views. 🍻🍻😄
We found this huge old gnarled juniper tree on the way.
We also found this huge horny toad!😄
Upon our arrival at the summit after a vigorous 45 minute steep uphill hike, we discovered two things.
1-we are out of shape for these steep hikes in the mountains.
2-We had sadly lost our excellent buzz. 😢
Fortunately, we are a bunch that travels prepared, and tequila, more cheese and crackers, and more beers were magically produced from backpacks and carry bags, and we quickly set the mood back to where it needed to be as the sun said it’s daily fair well.
The views didn’t disappoint, even though the pictures are not really that great. We could see all of Prescott Valley laid out before us, as well as parts of Prescott, Dewey, a lot of the 89a, Bill Williams mountain off towards Williams, and more.
Once it got dark, the lights of civilization sprinkled the high desert all around below us.
Now that it was fully dark, all we had to do was get 4 tipsy people off the mountain through some pretty rugged terrain with a total of one and a half functioning flashlights. 😄😄
Needless to say, we all survived the hike back, and being pro drinkers-er, I mean hikers-nobody even fell down in the dark and we all made our way unerringly back to the cabin porch.
Whereupon we discovered that once again our buzz had been somewhat tamed by all that hiking, and another round of beers was deemed necessary. 🤷♂️
It seems our drinking team has a hiking problem. 😄😄