This is the view looking northwest from near the top of the Thumb Butte hiking trail. It's a very popular trail with locals and visitors, since it is only a few minutes drive from downtown and is a fairly short hike (less than 2 miles) with rewarding views. It is also a very steep trail, so you get a good workout in a short distance.
I've lost count of how many times I've hiked this trail over the years, with G or friends. Two visits in particular stand out. The first was back in 2000 (I think), when several planets were in alignment and visible just after sunset. We went halfway up the trail in the gloaming and had a beautiful clear view to the west where Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury were visible, just as advertised. (Mercury was faint but distinguishable.) The other was September 12th, 2001. Prescott is flown over daily by dozens (if not hundreds) of commercial flights heading cross-country and into Phoenix. That day, not a contrail was to be seen, and no sound of engines. It was eerie, but also beautiful.
I took the above photo yesterday during a morning hike. It's stitched together from two shots (the camera was hand-held so the alignment is a little dicey). A little tweaking in Photoshop to bring out the detail, contrast and color. Our monsoon rains are finally starting so the clouds were quite "on".
The shoes that had their maiden voyage up at the Canyon got their true test here. Since the trail is so steep and a little slidey in some spots (most of the soil around here is decomposed granite; like really big grains of sand), I could feel the difference having a good shoe makes. No more slipping and skidding and banging my toes. Sometimes spending a little more for the good stuff really pays off.
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