I had to be home by 1pm today, so I decided to do a shorter hike and one that was close to home. I started at dawn by the Eagles nest TH and made my way thru the subdivision and to the trails. Got to the top at about 9:15am. There's a path that goes around the bigger radio tower. On the east side of it is a helipad. The hike up is essentially just following Thompson Peak Road, but it's still pretty intense due to the steepness. Kind of like parts of Icehouse Canyon in the Pinals. The way down was also kind of tricky since I have a strained abdominal muscle that I don't want to turn into a hernia. Everything went ok, though.

there's an old alignment of some road that's been semi grown and eroded over that you can easily follow on the way down. It's currently marked by a mini-Stonehenge looking cairn next to a telephone pole. If I was feeling better, I would have taken this way down for variety.

The description on this site says this hike is 10.2 miles, but the mileage on official maps available from Scottsdale and McDowell mt. park would add up to only 9.4. my GPS track said 9.6 (although the odometer said 9.9 [confused enough yet?]), so I went with that (9.6).

Stopped on the way home at Ftn Hills Express for some very good greasy spoon diner type food to go.