This was my last adventure in Arizona before coming home from college early due to the Coronavirus! It was in the middle of March, just around the time the Coronavirus became the topic of every conversation. I remember using the railing at one point during the hike, joking about catching the virus. Thankfully I didn’t get the virus that day.

Like my other adventures in Arizona, this one was planned last minute. Specifically, we decided what we were going to do and where we were going after we got in the car. Additionally, we weren’t that prepared, as you can imagine since we had just decided what our plans were.

Despit being unprepared, I had made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for me and my friends Ethan and Rita, and I brought us each an apple and small light blue gatorade as well. I had my PB&J on the way to Piestewa Peak because I didn’t want to get dizzy during the hike.

When we arrived, there were a lot of people already there. And there were different trails you can take leading to different points. I’m not sure how to describe the trail we took but it was on the left side of the “parking street” just after the spikes on the road haha.

While we were hiking up the mountain I happened to be talking about Lancaster (Pennsylvania) and smorgasbords when we passed a group of people, and somebody jumped into the conversation saying “Lancaster?! Smorgasbord?! I went to school right by Lancaster!” And I literally thought it was the craziest thing. Like I was talking about the MOST RANDOM thing and someone happened to be from that part of Pennsylvania, hiking the same mountain as me, in ARIZONA! Like who would’ve thought! I was so struck by this coincidence, that about 5 minutes later I was still talking about how crazy the interaction was, saying how I wish I asked him if he’d ever heard of Knoebels before (which is an amusement park near Hershey Park in Pennsylvania that I grew up going to, that definitely isn’t as popular as Hershey Park). Literally right as I say Knoebels, ANOTHER GUY jumps into my conversation saying “I know Knoebels! I’m from Allentown!” And at this point I don’t even know if I’m just delusional from being light headed hahahaha. I told him how I had just ran into another person from Pennsylvania just minutes before, and also that I have family that lives in Allentown! I asked him if he had heard of the town where my mom grew up (because it was really small and I felt like know one has heard of it before) and he did! This honestly made me so happy. When I called my mom later on to tell her about this, she thought it was hilarious. She agreed that the fact there were two people from the opposite side of the country that basically lived where a lot of her family lives was insane.

Rita, Ethan and I weren’t expecting the hike to be difficult. To our surprise, it was about as difficult as the hike for Camelback Mountain (keep in mind I am still fairly new to hiking haha). Honestly, if I would have know that the hike was going to be hard I would have prepared myself better, mentally and with more food and drinks. Because of this, I didn’t have the endurance to push through my mental barriers. I started to become a little bit dizzy, despite my breakfast and sandwich. We took a few small breaks, but I felt like I was holding Rita and Ethan back because I knew they wanted to keep going! At this point we were about ten minutes away from reaching the top, and I knew I would be disappointed with myself if I quit. If it was any hotter out that day, it wouldn’t have been smart to push through because I probably would have passed out eventually. Evem so, I pushed through and made it, and it was so worth it! I absolutely love seeing Arizona from a 360 degree view, there’s just something about it that is so peaceful.

The hike down was a lot easier. There was a traffic jam at one point and Rita found a way to scoot past them so I followed suit. However, the window of opportunity to pass the traffic jam closed after me, which left Ethan in the dust. He caught up eventually haha.

Afterwards, we went to Ethan’s house nearby and had lunch. We had bagels and chips and then Ethan decided to show off a new recipe he’d been working on! It was inspired by Starbucks’ grilled cheese. He had made his own processed cheese and made it into a grilled cheese sandwich. I haven’t had Starbucks’ grilled cheese before so I couldn’t compare the two, but his grilled cheese was the bomb. This was a great way to end my freshman year with some of my favorite people!

P.S. I have this post tagged as “sunrise” and “sunset” because it would be a great spot with its’ 360 degree view! I haven’t hiked Piestewa Peak for the sunrise or sunset but I hope to one day!

Have you climbed Piestewa Peak? What was your experience with this hike? Comment below!

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