Sunrise Trail: colors are popping

Scottsdale, maybe the first day of my retirement but definitely the fourth day of unemployment. Quick drive to the mountains and then a 45 minute hike to the top, Sunrise Peak, and 40 minutes coming down with photo breaks. This desert lives well, and right now life is abundant and apparent: Flowers, cactus, lizards, bunnies, birds and bees and one skinny solitary snake. My first hike on this trail was Christmas day: Cold, rainy but man, it blew me away even with those poor conditions so I’ve returned often. Acrophobia delayed me reaching the top, but the tenth attempt succeeded; now I hit it every time. More rigorous than my other regular hikes – Pinnacle Peak, Go John, Shaw Butte – more beautiful, less crowded. This might be my last April in the Sonoran Desert so gotta soak it in.

I hike at a decent, old guy clip for this 1800 foot elevation gain over two miles; today nobody passed me going up and I only passed one couple: Non-American elderly folks (meaning my age, sigh) on their first Sunrise Trail hike, stopping every ten minutes to admire views, plants, boulders, everything. I greeted them again on the descent where the woman told me about a red striped snake. I said maybe it was a baby snake, and my ignorance disgusted them, “Babies are born in the fall.” Oh. Three runners passed me on the down road, a young dude and then two young women, probably in a hurry to get out of tiny, tight tops that forced their womanliness into unnatural bulginess.

Meditation isn’t part of my daily life, but maybe hiking qualifies, assuming that thoughts about money, people, beauty, sex, travel, family, sex, and food can arise in a meditative state. What the heck – I’ll mark this as two hours on my meditation diary. And pay the cosmic price later.