Thinking of taking a trip to Reynolds Creek this Sunday. Rain is forecast for most of the weekend, possibly dry on Sunday. I've never been to the area, so I was wondering how the roads might be after a rain. I don't have 4WD, but do have a high clearance truck.

@Alston Neal
I think you've nailed my key to happiness too.

I saw swarms of blister beetles on the Mohave Trail at Piestewa a couple weeks ago. Hundreds of them. Saw a lot of them on the Ranger Trail at SM last week too. They seemed a little more aggressive at SM too... some of them actually flew after us and chased us off, lol. I don't remember seeing these...

@joe bartels Hey Joe, you may have seen in my recent triplog, but as of version 1.8.16, HAZ Tracks now works OK on my Moto X. I've used it successfully for several hikes now. Before this update, it made no difference what settings I changed on my phone, it would just never lock on. Now, it takes ab...

I'm going to be in the Los Angeles area for several days during Christmas week. I've been there several times but never gone hiking. This time, I'm doing some hiking. Already got some stuff on my list in the Griffith Park area, but I'm also planning on spending at least a day in the Santa Monica Mtn...

As much as I love my local places in Phoenix, I have to go with Diablo Burger in Downtown Flagstaff. It's expensive ($11-14, and I think still cash only), but probably the best burger I've ever had. The "DB House" burger is what I usually get, which comes with pesto and a fried egg on a blackened pa...

My thing today was with a "they don't look like they have ever gone hiking" family that was spooking the he** out of some horses that were up ahead of me at Thunderbird today. I'm not a big horse person and don't ride but you have to be some kind of dumb to provoke and scare horses that can trample...

Anyone know if it's OK to hike the Alta - Bajada Loop right now? Planned on starting from the National TH at 43rd ave/Estrella. The SM website still says Summit Rd and San Juan Rd are closed, including to hikers, and I know this loop crosses San Juan Rd a couple times, and is directly next to it for...

@chumley True, and I noticed that modem/router combo also has gigabit (1000Mb) ethernet speeds, so transferring between 2 hard-wired devices would benefit from that. Actually a pretty awesome price for a gigabit router/modem combo. If you mostly use wifi, it just depends on the devices and whether ...

@hikeaz There isn't a great benefit to having a modem/router combo other than the convenience and less clutter. Any modem, regardless of the DOCSIS version, will be compatible with your router. I'm assuming your router is at least 100Mb (look up your model number to be sure), so unless you have Cox...

You will definitely notice the speed difference depending on which plan you have from Cox. If you have the 50Mb plan, you will for sure notice the difference as DOCSIS 2.0 can only reach maybe half that speed. If you have a lower plan than that, it may not be worth it to upgrade. I'm not sure what t...

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone... These are all now on my wish list. I ended up going with Trekkin Gekko's suggestion and hiked Doe Mountain. Nice little hike with good views, and a great contrast to West Fork. You were right about the crowds Chumley... West Fork was CRAZY packed with touri...

@chumley Good to know... thanks. Mid-morning is exactly when I'll be arriving so hopefully it isn't too bad. @trekkin gekko Thanks, Doe Mountain is sounding like a good one. @BobP Boynton sounds awesome but I was thinking of saving that one for another trip. Your 2nd link sounds like a cool adventu...

I'm embarrassed to say I've never been hiking in Sedona. I'm fixing the situation tomorrow, though, and spending the day hiking. I figured West Fork would be a great introduction to the area, so I'm starting there. I know that one's gonna be about 6 miles, so I was looking to add on another shorter ...

@joe bartels I was on 1.8.5. I upgraded to 1.8.6 and I've tried it a few more times. Still the same. :( Just out of curiosity I installed HAZ Tracks on my girlfriend's phone, which is an HTC One with the same version of Android I have. I tried it in the same places I'm trying it on my phone and it ...

@joe bartels
Tried a few more times now in different places, Joe, and still can't get it to go below 20 ft. It just hovers at 20-22ft the majority of the time.

joe bartels wrote:I can work with that, thx for the heads up. If it ever goes below 20 how low have you seen it get?

The few times I've tried it it's never gone below 20 ft. I'll keep trying it though and let you know.

Hey Joe, I'm having some trouble with HAZ Tracks on my phone. It's a Moto X (first gen), Android 4.4.4. Every time I try to start recording it just hangs on "finding position accurary under 10 feet" forever. My accurary will generally stay between 20-25 ft, though occasionally it will spike to 30-50...

Mainly to get away from other people. And of course the scenery. If it's not a local hike I'm usually more concerned with the scenery than if I'm getting a workout or not.

Thanks for all the information guys. My car tends to ride pretty rough, so maybe that just made the road seem worse than it actually was. I'll probably still rent a small truck or SUV this time just to be comfortable. And we do plan on taking a couple side roads of unknown condition. On a side note....