Travel with Manfred

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Copyright © 1995 by Manfred P.. All rights reserved.

Oct. 14, 1995

Four Peaks Mountain

Arizona Day Trip

by

Manfred P.

Keywords: USA, Arizona, Four Peaks, tourist, travel trip report, travel log, travelogue.

It was a gorgeous day. Mid-October, sunshine, 90+ degrees, a slight warm breeze. Actually more "hot" than "warm". I hadn't had such a warm day in months. Simply being outdoors and feeling the sun rays on your skin was great. A close buddy Luis proposed to tackle the highest mountain in the Phoenix area: Four Peaks. Most people would assume that there are just hills around Phoenix but nothing really challenging. Not so. It's located just a few miles north of town. It carries snow throughout winter. That fact should speak for itself. Heading north on the road to Page it suddenly appears on the right hand side. It is easy to recognize. The name says it all. All four peaks are very steep.

In order to get to the mountain one has to turn onto a dirt road. The mountains already look close but the dirt road winds itself through the area and the peaks don't seem to come much closer. Even after 10 miles of a bumpy ride the goal looked only marginally closer. By now we had crossed two more or less dry river beds and when we reached the trailhead for the Muddy Creek Trail the road turned truly difficult. Without four wheel drive it was nearly impossible to continue. We parked the car in the dirt parking lot and looked around. It was obvious that we wouldn't make it to the Four Peaks. The distance was too big and the peaks also appeared very difficult. We had to look for a new challenge. Off to the north west were a bunch of cliffs that looked interesting. Luis suggested to follow one of the green looking creeks uphill. This is also what we settled on. The Mud Creek Trail (I think that's what it was called) didn't have that name without reason. Some of the creeks still had a little bit of water, just enough for a few mud puddles. Everything else was as expected very dry. The trail started out easy with an actual path to follow. The trail cut through typical Arizona vegetation. Cacti, thorn bushes, dry dead plants, and an occasional small tree. From the distance one could see that the plant life in the valley was higher than anywhere else. The colors were also different. In the valley the colors were of a lighter shade of green. The other areas had more brown and a darker color of green.

It didn't take too long and the trail vanished in thin air. We sort of expected that. We haven't seen anyone on the trail and generally all signs indicated that nobody has been here lately. Without trail it was a little bit more of a challenge to make progress. We followed -- what we thought was the creek -- uphill. Some portions were steep and very dry. So, with each step we loosened rocks and soil. We slipped backward half of each step forwards. Some of that loose material also found its way into our sneakers. We crawled on all four whenever the bushes got to dense. The trickiest part was the selection of branches to hold on to. In order to pull yourself upwards you had to get support from branches. Most of the branches, however, had thick spines. A wrong move usually resulted in getting stung by a cactus. Eventually we got higher and the vegetation changed. In this altitude pine trees started growing which made the climb a little bit easier. Not long afterwards we were on a ridge. From here a little rock plateau was visible not much further up the ridge. Once there we had a view of 270 degrees. The dirt road where we started appeared as a tiny ribbon in the background. To the west was a wide valley with a perfectly meandering creek that cut like a snake through the brush land. From here it was also noticeable that we didn't reach the ridge on the way we had originally planned. We must have made a turn somewhere and we followed a small side arm instead of the main creek. We continued working our way up. This time hopping from rock to rock and doing some easy rock climbing.

And suddenly, boom, there they were. The four peaks right in front of us. We didn't quite expect to have made it that far. Reaching the peak on which we stood the whole panorama opened up to us. The Four Peaks appeared majestic in front of us. Steeper than ever. Actually we could only see three of the four peaks with the forth one hiding behind the tallest. It was an impressive sight. The peaks were out of reach, most likely another two to four hours away. We were happy with where we were. The view was magnificent to all sides, the peaks on one, rolling hills with scrubs on the other, and the dry brown desert making up the rest.

The way down was a scream. We were partially sliding on the dirt, jumping through the bushes, or crawling. We followed the main creek down. Without doubt the way down was twice as fast as the way up. The creek was beautiful, with a few dry waterfalls and occasionally lined by strangely twisted thick and short trees. The kind of trees that you would associate with Halloween. At night it must be very spooky. Eventually we found our way back to the parking lot. Luis and I were high fiving each other and congratulating each other on a nice trip. After that good feeling my jaw dropped when we noticed the smashed car window. Everything from the car interior was gone. When I say everything I mean everything: private photos, letters, work documents and even sun lotion and the car manuals. Luckily he/she/they didn't break into the trunk and we didn't have anything irreplaceable in the car. So much for a good ending. Broken glass was all over the car, front seats, back seats, roof and hood. We went through a cleaning exercise before making the bumpy ride back to civilization.

But the 'fun' wasn't over. It made a nice little story to talk about over dinner. Seems like whenever I am out something out of the ordinary happens. The last time we were on a trip together we got stuck in the mud and had a hell of a time getting the car out of it. Today the burglary. After dinner I went to the police station to report the crime. What a nightmare. They gave me the run around. "Oh sorry, this is outside our jurisdiction." I spend hours waiting and on the phone. After a while I had collected five phone numbers of five police districts and spoken with a dozen officers. Telling the same story over and over again was a strain. I got pretty pissed and when I was about to give up and walk out of the police department, the phone rang and someone was kind enough to take the report for me. At 3:30 a.m. I finally was done with the ordeal. Being the victim is not easy.

I hope you have more luck than we did on your trip to Four Peaks. And don't forget to bring for 4x4.