Monday, January 14, 2019
Watson Adventures: Arizona
Guys. This year is already off to an incredible start! If you’ve been following for a little bit you may know that one of my sisters became a flight attendant recently. π It’s been incredibly fun to hear about her travels these past months and learn more of the behind the scenes. There is so much that goes on! I had no idea how much training flight attendants go through to handle any emergency that may happen in the air. (Though thankfully, it doesn’t happen very often!)
Even better, for 2019 she made me her primary friend! While I certainly wasnβt expecting this for the new year, Iβm going to make sure to take advantage and share along the way. π
This past weekend was our first sisters trip. It’s a little crazy that all three of us were free for the weekend, especially when I consider our schedules. Lisa is on call… all the time. Sarah works your typical 9-5 and I work so many weekends! When we realized we were all free, we officially blocked it off.
I’ve only been to Arizona once for a golf training trip in college, (Which was awesome!) but pretty structured so this was my first time exploring. We decided to do Bear Mountain trail in Sedona and it was an adventure from the beginning! To start, I tweaked my foot at the airport so the morning of our 5 mile hike I was hobbling. I almost never hurt myself, but that morning, I was convinced I’d broken a bone in my foot. I’ll tell you now, I’m totally fine, but know that I was hobbling this whole hike on top of everything else you’ll read. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure the problem was my shoes. Oops!
We hit the road for Bear Mountain, a popular trail head. About 30 minutes out we hit the dirt road. Which was fine, because thankfully, our rental car got upgraded complementary to a midsize. Hello Nissan Sentra! After 20 minutes on this dirt road, we were directed down a second dirt road. My first though was, “Humm… it doesn’t really look like cars go down this road…” I should have listened to my gut! Another 30 minutes later when we finally made it to the trail head! I was sweating bullets and I wasn’t even driving! The road was that bad… check it out….
Looks promising.
Random driveway we found. I don’t know what it is, but I just loved it!
We were in the middle of nowhere when this ranch showed up. I hobbled out of the car to take a few photos. π
Proof of what we were driving.
The second dirt road.
At this point, I was pretty sure we didn’t belong on this road.
That was easily a 40 degree incline!
We made it though. π
Then the road narrowed. Can you even tell where the road is in this photo? It’s certainly not big enough for two cars!
We kept going though. Google was directing and this was a popular trailhead.
30 minutes later… we made it to our destination only to find no trailhead! However, we did find some beautiful views
so we took a few photos and tried Google one last time. Thankfully, this time we made it. π
We turned off the second dirt road, back onto the main dirt road, drove for less than 50 yards and hit pavement. lol
We checked a map for Bear Mountain trail, asked a couple of seasoned hikers and headed out.
These are my sisters. Sarah the engineer on the left. Lisa the flight attendant on the right.
We were all feeling pretty good till we found the split where our trailhead was suppose to start.
That’s when we re-called the map. We were on the wrong trail. Again.
Bear Mountain was on the other side of the road in the photo above.
Whoops! Oh well. π We hiked this one. π
20 minutes later, the view at the top was beautiful. π
Oh hi! On another note. I was given Pony-O for Christmas.
You know, those Instagram adds. The bun Pony-O is awesome! π
We were pretty determined to make it to Bear Mountain Trail
so after our warm up hike, we finally crossed the road to the trailhead.
Then we read the sign… 4 hours till sunset… in our gym shoes, with almost full water bottles.
How hard could it be? If it got two late, we could always turn around. 4.5 miles. 2000 foot elevation change.
I was guessing we could make it there and back in two hours. Ha! Anyone else?
(Side Note: We thought the end of the trail was at the top of this peek above.)
See those small white dots on the rocks?
For two hours and eleven minutes we followed those all the way to the top of Bear Mountain Trail.
We had NO IDEA what we were getting into!
But true to Bradley fashion, (My maiden name.) we didn’t quit and the sites were worth it! π
After two false summits we saw this peek in the distance.
The end of the trail was two more false summits after this one.
(Wishing for a laughing emoji because we really were laughing at ourselves and having fun!)
The view near the end. π #WorthIt
When we made it to the top, the first thing I did was take a photo of the sign. Proof we made it! We were exhausted, (We missed lunch because we didn’t think it would take that long!) still had to hike back down, and the sun we setting in 90 minutes, but anyone looking for an incredible climb… this was it! (And it really does take 5 hours!)
Hope you enjoyed hearing a little of our Arizona adventure and if you know somewhere we should go, let me know!
Till Next Time,
PS. In case your wondering, the rental car was totally fine! While I don’t recommend it for off roading, it will work in a pinch. π
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January 14, 2019