Since I've managed to pick up an upper respiratory "bug", we won't be climbing Silly Mountain on this visit to the Apache Junction area. Located on Highway 60 just east of Apache Junction, Silly Mountain is more of a hill, but the gravel trail leading up to its peak is rocky-slippery and steep enough to provide a good aerobic workout. When we first arrived in the Apache Junction/Gold Canyon area three winters ago we passed Silly Mountain on every drive into AJ and noted all the cars in the parking area and talked about trying to walk up it, but the first winter passed and we never made the attempt. The next winter we didn't stay as long in the area and were busy with other things so passed up the opportunity to make the climb again. Last winter we finally made the conscious decision to stop and make the trek to the top.
There's nothing like having 80 year-olds pass you while you've stopped to huff and puff to make you realize how out of shape you are. In our defense, we're both ex-smokers and at the time were twenty pounds heavier than we are today, but it was still quite disconcerting to have folks who were obviously quite older than us pass us with ease. Upon chatting with these people after finally arriving at the peak we discovered that many of them make the walk up the mountain on a daily basis for exercise. And believe me, it's good exercise!
We were told that the best times to come were at sunrise and sunset as the view is spectacular then. I would imagine that's true because this area has some of the most beautiful sunsets we've ever experienced. But it's a nice jaunt at any time of day and we left feeling quite proud of ourselves that we had made that local snowbird rite-of-passage by climbing Silly Mountain.
No comments:
Post a Comment