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| Hiking | 10.20 Miles |
1,848 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.20 Miles | 4 Hrs 25 Mns | | 2.31 mph |
| 1,848 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Decided to take another trip out to the west side again to hike the rest of the trails at Skyline Regional Park that I didn't get to on my first visit. Earlier in the week I texted my old pre-HAZ days hiking buddy and former co-worker Ted to see if he was interested. To my surprise, he was in!  Another former co-worker, Luigi, was also supposed to join us. However, he gave the infamous Saturday night bail out text to Ted about 9:30pm, complaining about a bad shoulder and torn meniscus. It is suspected (however, not confirmed) that alcohol was involved during the time the text was sent.  
During the drive out on I-10, there was a steady drizzle of rain, with occasional bursts that required higher windshield wiper speeds. We started at 6:40am, with enough daylight to not need a headlamp. There was a very light mist of rain, more like a heavy fog. I decided to start hiking with my new rain jacket that I got for Christmas just in case (and also, just because).
Within an hour, the clouds had cleared and the sun was out pretty bright. We still had some patches of shade since we started out heading west on the Granite Falls Trail and then north on the Turnbuckle. After about 2-3 miles, it was time to shed the rain jacket and put up my sun protection hood. The clouds came by later and gave some occasional softer light from the sun, but it was mostly pretty sunny after the first hour.
Our route was west on Granite Falls, north on Turnbuckle, east on Granite Falls, north on Mountain Wash, south on Turnbuckle (east part of the loop), north again on Mountain Wash (made a loop), east on Lost Creek, south/east on Skyline Crest, hit the Crest Summit, then west on Quartz Mine and Parking Lot connector trails.
The views on the Skyline Crest Trail were the best. Obviously the higher elevation and views helped, but also at that the clouds began to roll in again, casting some really nice shadows over the park and hitting the top of the White Tank Mountains.
After the hike we hit Rudy's BBQ for a fantastic lunch. Gotta make a mental footnote to hit there again for future hikes.
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