McDowell Mountain Preserve

Last Sunday Mara and I got up at the crack of dawn to hike a preserve that's only about a 10 minute drive from our place called McDowell Mountain Preserve. It was really pretty cool out that early and there was hardly anyone there! We hiked a trail called the Lost Dog Wash which brought us up to about 1500 foot above the city and gave us some nice views. We only went on a shorter hike just to get our feet wet and see how Rohan handled everything. From the pictures you can see he did just fine. He even took his first sip of water from a water pack...:)

We'll post more hikes as we do them, and longer ones at that, but with Summer (and 120°F) looming in the near future we may not get in as many as we'd like. Our friend Sasha gave us a nice hiking book for AZ hikes, and we have another one from Greg & Nico on hikes around Phoenix, so we should have PLENTY of trails to check out!

Here are some pics:

I like to take some panoramic pictures which can be quite large and not really "blog friendly". I'll post some lower quality images, but if you'd like the real thing just let me know. There are 3 from our McDowell Mountain Hike and 2 from the Sonoran Desert Museum with Nikki & Crawford.