Telegraph Pass Hike?

Currently In:  Phoenix, AZ

On our last full day in Yuma we wanted to do the popular Telegraph Pass hike.  It is designated as moderate with a steep section at the end, so we were in!

I followed my phone GPS directions to the trailhead.  There were other cars in the parking lot and we saw the trail in front of us.  Looked a little steep, but doable.

The path wasn't too bad toward the bottom.

Wait, where did the trail go?  This is just loose rock!

We toughed it out and made it to the top.  Funny, nowhere did I read that the trail disappears into loose rock.

We did find a cross that a young man put up to honor his parents.

We got into a conversation with another group at the top about the steepness and the rock.  They told us this isn't Telegraph Pass.  They pointed behind us...."That is".  I guess from the parking lot the Telegraph Pass went off to the right after you cross the wash (it wasn't marked).  Oops.

The view was still pretty.

The guy we talked to at the top sounded like he knew what he was doing, so we took the same path down the side of the mountain that his group did.  They were older than we were and typically hike the same kind of trails we do.  Sounds like a plan.

This section got a little difficult.  We just took our time.

The last section was very steep and all loose rock.  We both went down slowly and on our backsides.

Made it to the bottom.  It took us about 20 minutes to get to the top and over an hour to get back down.

My first post in this blog talked about "what stupid thing did we do today?"  We haven't done anything this dumb in a long time.  So happy to see our car again.  It's 3 days later and my legs still hurt!

I want to end this post with something fun - a good memory.  So, here goes.  The RV Park in Yuma had a lot of residents that come down for the winter.  Most of them own "park models" - they look more like a small home, but still need RV hook ups.  Many homes were already decorated for Christmas when we got there on November 8!