HikeArizona.COM

I bag wilderness areas as a pastime. I haven't updated my "wilderness vitae" recently, but I'm at roughly 170 now, hiked. I do the high point if it's reasonable from a starting point reachable in my Yaris or rental car. Before moving to Phoenix in March 2016, I would fly out to various reaches of the West and meet a friend who then taught at UCSD and then UCR. With his move to the PNW and now being obligated to hike every weekend, I'm flying solo. I'm close to running out of driveable unbagged wilderness. For tomorrow, I'm aiming for either Eagle Benchmark (Eagletails) or Peak 5029 (Harquahalas) via Dushey Canyon. During summer, I was taking ridiculously long drives north (Pine area, even Kendrick) that I had trouble rationalizing for one person.

I'm looking for a good way to find either one-off or repeat co-scramblers. Meetup has a few occasionally, but I've been unable to adjust to the "early-riser" mindset that predominates here, even in winter. (Ed B. of Take A Hike leads more traditional hikes closer in into Spring, and I've been on a few, even co-leading one to Governor's Peak; however, these aren't always appealing or don't check my boxes.) My body is adjusted to working an evening shift, and I've walked down a trail or bajada by flashlight a hundred times. I see the option to post hike events on HAZ, but the response rate appears to be nil. Is the only other option starting my own fee-to-RSVP Meetup group?

You may want to watch for trip invites from Peter Medal, I've observed him to post several trips for off-trail peak bagging, and seldom gets anyone who joins.

vapno wrote:I bag wilderness areas as a pastime. I haven't updated my "wilderness vitae" recently, but I'm at roughly 170 now, hiked. I do the high point if it's reasonable from a starting point reachable in my Yaris or rental car. Before moving to Phoenix in March 2016, I would fly out to various reaches of the West and meet a friend who then taught at UCSD and then UCR. With his move to the PNW and now being obligated to hike every weekend, I'm flying solo. I'm close to running out of driveable unbagged wilderness. For tomorrow, I'm aiming for either Eagle Benchmark (Eagletails) or Peak 5029 (Harquahalas) via Dushey Canyon. During summer, I was taking ridiculously long drives north (Pine area, even Kendrick) that I had trouble rationalizing for one person.

I'm looking for a good way to find either one-off or repeat co-scramblers. Meetup has a few occasionally, but I've been unable to adjust to the "early-riser" mindset that predominates here, even in winter. (Ed B. of Take A Hike leads more traditional hikes closer in into Spring, and I've been on a few, even co-leading one to Governor's Peak; however, these aren't always appealing or don't check my boxes.) My body is adjusted to working an evening shift, and I've walked down a trail or bajada by flashlight a hundred times. I see the option to post hike events on HAZ, but the response rate appears to be nil. Is the only other option starting my own fee-to-RSVP Meetup group?

I am often game but I am more of a very early morning hiker, etc. I do not work at all on Fri-Sun. I am actually looking for a partner as I get tied of going solo as well.

I'd be totally down to hike. I find that just reading triplogs and asking questions can be helpful on here as I have found hiking partners that way but it is difficult to find people. The people I go with now I actually met through work. But I go out every weekend and I have an off-road vehicle so just hmu if you ever wanna hike together

My boyfriend and I are Grand Canyon peak baggers so if you're ever up there and willing to try your hand at that kinda thing let me know.
We don't use rope or do technical climbs if can avoid it. We enjoy Butcharting.

vapno wrote:For tomorrow, I'm aiming for either Eagle Benchmark (Eagletails) or Peak 5029 (Harquahalas) via Dushey Canyon.

Were you able to hike either of these? I'd be interested in reading your triplog or seeing a photo or two of your hike.

chumley wrote:

vapno wrote:For tomorrow, I'm aiming for either Eagle Benchmark (Eagletails) or Peak 5029 (Harquahalas) via Dushey Canyon.

Were you able to hike either of these? I'd be interested in reading your triplog or seeing a photo or two of your hike.

I delayed them to do a Meetup. The good news is that the Meetup leader has agreed to allow me to piggyback on their group to post scrambles. I *will* be scheduling Eagle Benchmark for 1/22 with 6 slots and see how it goes. I'm doing a few solos out of Yuma this weekend. I've written very few triplogs over the years. I'll aim to do more in the future, if I can find some time when my screen isn't monitored at work.

CorruptSplicer wrote:I'd be totally down to hike. I find that just reading triplogs and asking questions can be helpful on here as I have found hiking partners that way but it is difficult to find people. The people I go with now I actually met through work. But I go out every weekend and I have an off-road vehicle so just hmu if you ever wanna hike together

I will HYU in the future! Thanks! Busy on the 22nd?

@vapno
Cool. It sounds like you hike similar things that I enjoy doing. I can't speak for everybody here but I am more comfortable hiking with somebody I haven't hiked with before if I've seen a few triplogs from them. It gives me a sense for hiking style, ability, speed, etc. Especially when it comes to off-trail scrambling I like knowing a little bit about the people I'm out there with.

Hope to run into you soon.

Just an update on this: I've posted several off-trail hikes on the Take A Hike Meetup group. The highest attendance I've gotten is ONE. Most of the time it's a lady from Vegas, who was part of the MUCH more active scrambling community up there. Separately, I've taken her and a guy relatively new to hiking to Peak 5026 in the Harquahalas. Eagle Benchmark was great! All in all, the group is an older demographic that is less open to new exploration. I might get a slightly better response in a group tailored to younger hikers, but I don't have hosting access on the groups.

I see it's possible to announce you're doing a hike on a date here, but I'm not seeing a time specified for anyone, so I imagine there's no way to meet-up with other hikers this way.

I wish I had the narrative skills to punch out visual descriptions of my hikes. I did barely make it through grad school, but I've never gotten positive feedback when I struggled to describe a hike, like I did once for the Wilderness Society blog. I have a developmental disability that fetters my communication in that way. But as an example, I did Mount Ord from Ord Mine and back in 6 hours on Saturnday. My longest recent day hike was 21 miles in the Blue. (The interior trails is just awful there.) I'm no runner, but my pace is quick enough I have to slow down on Meetups.

I wish I had more ideas, but I guess I can keep trying.

vapno wrote:I see it's possible to announce you're doing a hike on a date here, but I'm not seeing a time specified for anyone, so I imagine there's no way to meet-up with other hikers this way.

When you "Post a New Event", time and other such details can be included in your post. Then after posting you will see an option at the top of the page to specify a date.