This morning we woke up at about 4:40 and headed out to the South Mountain Preserve for a sunrise hike. Today’s hike was not overly strenuous and we actually did a bit of running on the way out.

The trails are well traveled and popular with the mountain bikers so you’ll be sharing the trail. The views of the Valley were tremendous, especially with the morning sun!

I especially loved this view of Four Peaks and Red Mountain.

    We saw a coyote wandering the neighborhood outside the entrance to the park, he did not like me stalking him. Lol. On the early leg of the hike you’ll find these old stone structures too. I didn’t investigate their origin yet….

    We encountered a few little tunnels and a few areas that required some scaling and climbing to continue on the trail, some of the rocks were quite slick also.

    There were tons of hummingbirds out and I was lucky to catch this little guy taking off from his perch. (with my cell phone!)

    We could not get enough of the views!

    Overall, this was a fun trail, finishing up at 6.47 miles and 873 feet in elevation gain, it made a moderately easy trail that I will look forward to hiking again!