Hayden's First Hike

Hayden loves being active and loves being outside so I decided to take her on a hike. She was so excited on the way as she kept pointing to and asking which mountain she would be going up. It turned out that we went up Piestewa (Squaw) Peak. I previously went online to pick out the best trail as there are dozens with all varieties of skill level. We found a solid "Easy/Moderate" trail that was 1.5 miles long and was a loop.








I was indeed quite surprised when we got going that the trail was much more 'Moderate' than it was 'Easy' as there were lots of boulders and rocks and steep inclines and declines. I was at first apprehensive as I wasn't sure if she could handle it. But did Hayden care? No, she loved it. She scampered up the trail and over the rocks and jumped down the drops. I should have been more worried about me (and yes, I made it just fine thank you very much).

I was blown away by how much she attacked the mountain. A couple times other people passed us running. Hayden asked if she could run. I told her no, saying she needed to be older before trying that. Then at the end of the loop she wanted to go up and down again. I love her energy, but of course we were done for the day as I knew she would crash later that evening. Spoiler Alert: she did.

She has been asking about going up again so it looks like we will be going hiking more often. We are fortunate to have so many different mountains with numerous trails here in Phoenix. It looks like we have an outdoorsy girl!

Hayden and I at the summit of our trail. The city of Phoenix is in the background.

At the end of the hike she was excited about her accomplishment.
We went up and around that mountain behind her.