Hooked on Phoenix

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I would love to live in a city with a mountain in the middle!
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Yesterday Keith took us to hike Camelback Mountain. I don't know exactly when I got so outdoors-y (the last 10 years , I guess), but I think this will be the highlight of the trip for me!

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It was a gorgeous hike. The day was nice and cool, perfect for working so hard hiking to the summit.

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Here is most of the hiking crew. Keith and I will remember we were there to.

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Close to the trail head we found a 'cave'. We found several more along the trail, but much to Chloe's dismay we didn't stop and take a picture in each of them.
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We had some disparity in our hiking abilities. The whole thing (up, over, down the other side) took us 4 hours as a group. Steven would have liked to have done it twice as fast. Jaclyn could have done it at Steven's pace, but was happier about staying back and helping the smaller hikers.
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We had no idea that the hike would be so challenging. There was lots of scrambling, very little trail. It was tough. And Chloe did it in Crocs because we didn't bring her runners. Her footwear choices for the hike were snow boots or Crocs. We felt a little judged by other hikers on the trail (Ken overheard comments) but Chloe didn't suffer. In fact she sang and danced all the way down from the summit.

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This fence was probably to keep houses below safe from falling rock - and the rail was to help you up and down (that's Jaclyn in the green scaling right up the middle with no aid from the rail). While we scaled this part of the mountain, I figured it was probably the hardest part of the hike, but the bouldering near the top was actually more difficult.
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Here are the Summiteers (Ken and I will remember we were there.) From the top, the kids and I hiked down the other side while Ken turned around to return to the car so that he could pick us up from the other trail head.

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(Eventually.)

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(Since it turned out that I had the car keys with me in my pack.)

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(Oops.)

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