The Thursday hikes with Billie and Neil are going great! By combining the two groups, North Mt. Visitor Center and AZ Trailblazers, we usually end up with 9 or so hearty hikers looking to jump start a summer day. Today was predicted to be another record breaker (heat) but we were surprised to find it quite nice with a light cloud cover and a slight breeze the entire time.

We met at the West Trailhead by the dog park and were on the trail at 6:02 AM. Although I had written it up to be a clockwise loop, taking in the Ridgeline Trail to a high point, we changed it a little and hiked counterclockwise, because the trail up to the peak is more gradual when done in this direction. We had a great look at the Central Arizona Canal Project (CAP), and passed an informative plaque explaining the project. Some of us even stopped to read it.

It worked out great, and we made our goal of finishing at 8:00.

The trails at Deem Hills are similar to those at the neighboring Thunderbird Park, which we hiked 2 weeks ago. There are other trail heads at both parks which we plan to explore in the future.

Our hikers today included 6 AZ Trailblazers and 3 Visitor Center hikers (actually 4 because I, Billie go both ways).

Thanks again to Bill McCall for documenting our trip with his camera.

hikers 9
miles 4
hours 2
elevation gain 353'