As soon as I found out A.Drama and Marvin were going to be here over New Year's I knew I had to try and talk them into a New Year's Day hike. I had read about first day hikes in a news article. They are sponsored by the American Hiking Society in conjunction with US State Parks to get people out and moving and enjoying the state parks to start off the new year in a healthy way. LOVE the idea! I have been dying to check out the Lost Dutchman State Park and this was the perfect opportunity.
Wouldn't you know it, just as they arrived in town, the temperatures continued to plummet, the northern part of the state got like two feet of snow, and there were flurries in Phoenix! Not only that but today we broke the 1906 record for coldest high, it only reached 46°F in the valley. Brrr! That wasn't going to stop us!
I woke up this morning and saw on Facebook that there was snow on the Superstition Mountains! What an extra treat! Little did I know that it was a HUGE deal, people were losing their minds. NiBo and I had been out that way just a week or so ago on our way up to Tortilla Flats and there was maybe 10 cars on the road with us. Not today. Everyone in their brother had their camera's out and tripods set up along every open inch of the shoulder on the route that leads to the park. I never said that Arizonans were a smart bunch and they just continue to demonstrate their lack thereof.
Thankfully we were able to make it past the gawkers and into the state park. I was hoping that less people would be willing to pay to get into the park, nope. Way wrong. There was hardly a spot to be found, luckily we found a spot just as someone was leaving otherwise I don't know how long we would have been looking.
The trails were jam packed with people climbing up to see the snow. I was surprised at the amount of people that had very small children with them that they were dragging up the mountain. Lots of people had dogs too.
We decided to take the Treasure Loop Trail, which is a 2.4 miles loop with an elevation gain of 500 ft. The trail is described as moderate difficulty and I actually didn't even think it was that bad. When compared to the Grand Canyon trail we hiked, this seems like literally a walk in the park ;)
The mountains in the background are almost completely white from the snowfall. The higher elevations got much more snow, up to 17" in some places!
The farther we got towards the top of our route the closer and closer we got to the snow. We actually timed it just about right, the sun was hidden until we got close enough to play in the snow and then it came out and let us capture some nice pictures with a pretty blue sky peeking through. The snow was melting very quick and you could already see the little streams starting flow.
Some had already played in the snow before us! Hello Olaf!
We made our own mini snowman so we could say we built an Arizona Snow man!
Without even being in search of Arizona Winter, I definitely found it. I had to search for Fall, but winter came to me! Arizona has had a weird weather year in 2014 from historic flooding to giant dust storms, I was there to see it all! Hopefully 2015 doesn't have too many surprises in the weather department. Next week (just in time for A.Drama and Marvin to leave) the temperatures return to a more normal temperature in the lower/mid 70's. I will welcome them back with open arms.
Check back for a final look back at my 2014 and what's in store for me in 2015! I hope everyone had a great New Years eve and a great start to their New Year!
