Hiking the Marcus Landslide Trail Carol Rice On Feb. 13 a group of “D” hikers headed to the Tom’s Thumb trailhead in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve to hike the Marcus Landslide trail. About 500,000 years ago a portion of the McDowell Mountain summit collapsed. There are several interpretive signs along the trail that explain how…
Lynn Warren The hike to Flatiron, a Phoenix icon located at the northern end of the Superstitions, is considered one of the toughest hikes in the Phoenix area and requires route-finding, boulder hopping, and scrambling, but on Feb. 5, eleven PebbleCreek “A” hikers started at Lost Dutchman State Park and completed a 7-mile RT hike/scramble…
Lynn Warren The primary focus of the hiking club is, of course, hiking, but the club also supports other activities and causes. October was Breast Cancer Awareness month and 30 members of the club, wearing pink, turned out on Oct. 16 to show support for the battle against this terrible disease. Hikers of three different…
Lynn Warren July 31 was another hot, humid day in Phoenix (high of 110 degrees). To escape the heat, eight hikers headed to the Camp Verde area to hike a club favorite at West Clear Creek. The drive down to the trailhead was challenging, and best done with a high clearance vehicle, but the hike…
Lynn Warren On June 6, the 80th anniversary of D-Day, nine “D” hikers enjoyed a relatively easy but scenic 4-mile loop in Estrella Mountain Regional Park just 20 minutes south of PebbleCreek. During the summer months, hikes start as early as 5:30 a.m. to beat the heat, which was very appropriate for this hike since…
Lynn Warren How do hikers escape triple-digit temperatures in the valley? Well, one popular way is to head for higher elevation so on July 18, a combination of ten “B” and “C” hikers headed for West Clear Creek, a few miles southeast of Camp Verde. The “B” hike was a relatively easy ten miles RT…
Ruth Bindler Tuesday March 19, dawned in the mid-50s as a beautiful, sunny day with very little wind, a welcome respite from some cold, rainy and windy weather in the previous week. It was a perfect day for a group of 16 PebbleCreek hikers to head for Yarnell. Although a few hiking groups from the…
Lynn Warren Gary Bray is one of several Canadian members of the hiking club and began hiking with the club in 2007, normally hiking just one day a week. On February 24 Gary became only the second Canadian (and first from Ontario) to reach 1,609 km (1,000 miles). It was a beautiful, sunny day for…
Pete Williams On March 10 twenty hikers from the PebbleCreek Hiking Club did a hike in nearby Skyline Regional Park. The wildflowers were outstanding! Because we have had good winter rains, the desert is so green it’s almost unrecognizable. Standing in front of a hillside of blooming Brittlebush are (left to right): Jim Gillespie, Linda…
Lynn Warren The 100,000 acre Eagletail Mountains Wilderness area is located along the western edge of the Harquahala Valley and is accessed via I-10, Exit 81, just 45 miles west of PebbleCreek. Although the last few miles require driving on a rocky, unpaved road, the area rewards hikers with scenery comparable to portions of the…