Friday Fitness Hike

Friday’s hike started at the Dixie Mine Trailhead. We hiked out to the mine, past the petroglyphs, up the wash, and then turned left onto the Prospector Trail. That took us to the road where we bade goodbye to Steve and Laurie. Most of the rest of us hiked up the road to the summit of Thompson Peak. We returned via the road and the Dixie Mine Trail. Total distance was 10.8 miles with 2400 feet of total ascent.

A view from the Dixie Mine Trail:

Taking a break on the Dixie Mine Trail.

A view of the mine tailings.

A view of the entrance to the mine. I blended three exposures to see as far into the mine as I could.

Jerry, Linda, Bob, Laurie, Denise, Steve, and Kevin:

The waterfall (when there’s water) from the bottom:

Hiking up the waterfall…

A fun slab for practicing smearing technique.

This peak with the towers is Thompson’s Peak. That’s where we’re going.

Linda and Denise on the lower section of road.

A view of Four Peaks.

Denise continues up the road.

There’s a brief plateau after the first steep, paved section. But there’s still a good ways to go and it gets even steeper later on. (I had forgotten this.)

Up at the towers.

Bob, Linda, Jerry, and Kevin at the summit of Thompson Peak.

An interesting view that I noticed as we were descending:

This is one of three vehicles that we encountered as we walked back down the road.

A view which helps to show how high and steep the road is.

Linda descends a fairly steep section of road near the top.

A cyclist on the Dixie Mine trail.

A view of Thompson’s peak from the Eagle’s Nest gated community. We had less than half a mile left to hike to get back to our vehicles at this point.