End of the World at Piestewa

Weather: 80º, sunny, breezy

Time:  27 minutes

About this Hike:  Enroute to Piestewa I passed the Circle K at E. McDowell & 24th St.  The sign read $4.44 for regular unleaded.  What happened that gas nearly doubled overnight!?  Did conflict with N. Korea escalate?  Did another hurricane or earthquake severe vital pipelines?

I hadn't watched the morning news or checked Facebook prior to leaving for my hike. Was I out of the loop on some major occurrence?  We live in scary times, after all.

The main road to Piestewa is tore up with construction, but parking was abundant at the trailhead upon my 11 AM arrival.  I whipped out my phone and tried to get news feeds.  My phone wasn't connecting to a Verizon tower.  Instead I received a 'No Service' warning. 'Great...whatever happened last night severed telecommunications too,' I thought.  

So I began my hike.  I used the Samsung Fitness app to record my time to the top, as I always do.  It argued and protested since there wasn't a reliable cellular/data connection, but it still allowed me to record my time—a run-of-the-mill 27 minutes.

The empty parking lot did not betray how crowded the summit was today.  Up at ~2600 feet, my ancient Galaxy S5 had regained service.  I checked news feeds.  I checked Google for current gas prices.  All seemed stable.  While some were predicting the world was going to end today, it apparently hadn't.  My nerves were beginning to calm down.

As I headed back to the trailhead, everyone else at the summit decided to depart at the same time.  It made for a difficult bottleneck getting down.  One ascending hiker comment, 'Was there a fire drill at the top?'  Eventually I broke free of the crowd.  I reset my fitness tracker app not because I'm trying to break any records in the descent, but simply so it records my activity and calorie burn more accurately.  It said I descended in 27 minutes...surprising since this descent usually takes me closer to 40 minutes.  I don't run like some people...I've seen too much fresh blood on our Phoenix Mountains.

So the world didn't end today. I enjoyed cooler fall temps (finally!) and easy parking.  Gas at the Chevron near Piestewa was $2.49.  I can only think Circle K had a glitch or error in their sign...

Cheers to another day and another hike!