Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Padre Canyon

On Friday the weather got worse. Clouds rolled in overnight and the weather people were all saying that it would start at 10:00am and last into the evening. Mike's ride got changed to 9:00am to try to stay ahead of the weather, and we doubted whether or not we'd even leave the hotel.

By 8:00am we decided to head out and hike together. It's a lot easier to stay warm hiking than riding a bike. My planned hike for the day was hiking from Snow Canyon to Padre Canyon (where Tuacahn is) and back to Snow Canyon over the mountain.
I didn't realize how much of a climb it would be to get out of Padre Canyon. It was a 600 foot climb in less than half a mile to get to the top of the pass. There were also a lot of ups and downs on the way to Padre Canyon.
It was neat to see Tuacahn from behind. The rock formations were amazing.
I took a picture of a big cactus for my son. He's obsessed with cacti. Yes, you read that correctly.
This is a panoramic picture from the top of the pass with Tuacahn on the left and Snow Canyon on the right.


The whole hike we could see the clouds forming to the South, but we didn't get rained on until we were a half mile from the car.
My original plan was to head North in Snow Canyon to see more of the park, but by the time we made it down from the pass and slogged through miles of deep sand we decided to take the shortest route back to the car. We could tell the clouds wouldn't hold off much longer, and could see the rain falling in the distance.
We made it back to the car after 6.5 miles hiked and 1250 feet climbed. It was a beautiful trail but we felt rushed the whole time and probably didn't take enough time to enjoy it. Plus we were really hurting by the end. That put me up to 18 miles in about 25 hours That was enough.

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