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Mile 370.  Tortoise wishes Wounded Duck a very happy birthday!  To celebrate this, he ventured on to a new trail to him, the Arizona Trail, on the third and final day of his business trip today.  This was a long day, starting in Palm Desert, including a meeting in Peoria, AZ (near Phoenix), and then home by way of Flagstaff.  Pictured above are two of the landmarks of that city, the San Francisco peaks in the distance and Route 66 at the signal lights below the peaks.  The Arizona Trail goes from Stateline Campground on the Utah-Arizona border east of Kanab, to near Jacob Lake, down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and up the South Rim, becomes an urban trail through Flagstaff, and continues several hundred more miles to Mexico.  It's perhaps a third of the length of the Pacific Crest Trail that hosted yesterday's walk.  Both are National Scenic Trails.

Today's walk started at the McDonalds just south of Route 66 and followed the Arizona Trail north from there two miles to the junction with the local Cedar Trail before returning.  The cool crisp mountain air was a welcome change from the desert heat yesterday!  The day's walking thought is by Jeffrey Holland, appropriate for Wounded Duck's birthday ...

Cheerio!

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Mile 366.  The second day of Tortoise's business trip took him gradually east to Palm Desert.  His last stop of the day was to drive to the gate on the Snow Canyon Road that the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) shares for a little more than a mile.  This point is PCT mile 206.8.  Lou parked here and walked uphill into the San Jacinto wilderness.  The mountain itself towers 9,000 feet above the trail in this picture, something Fredricksen and Ledge will well remember.  Today's walk climbed 1,006 feet of elevation, the most for a Tortoise walk so far in 2016, but only a tiny portion of the mountain.  At PCT mile 204.3, light was fading quickly and it was time to turn around for today.  Hope you enjoy the pictures and the day's walking thought by Paul Johnson ...

Cheerio!

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Mile 324.  For a second day in a row, Tortoise enjoyed an accompanied walk with one of his children.  Now there is a true treat!  Today it was with Benjamin, and it set 2016 year-to-date records for hardest trail (with a tortoise rating of 1.3) and most feet climbed (802).  Benjamin likes to encourage Lou to get his heart rate up by adding more elevation gain to his walks, so he suspects this record won't last long.  He's already talking about new attempts on Zion's East Rim and on Timpanogos, for example.  

As with yesterday's walk, the company was excellent, and there are some lovely scenic views as well along the way from Indian Road Trailhead (just off Canyon Road at 5500 North near the mouth of Provo Canyon) to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail.  Today's thought is by Bonnie Oscarson ...

Cheerio!

16-95

Mile 249.  Ledge recently sent Tortoise a link to the new Quarry Trail in St. George.  This evening he checked it out for himself.  It packs a lot of scenery into its 0.7 mile round trip, which starts at the north end of 700 West where that street dead ends at a golf course.  Lou was hoping this would connect to the nearby trails in the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, but apparently no.  So to complete today's activity, he drove to the Pioneer Hills trailhead parking lot and did part of the City Creek trail, including over 30 pictures.  Today's thought is by Neill Marriott ...

Cheerio!

16-93

Mile 245.  Long walk last night, short one this morning.  Lou took Ledge's suggestion and checked out the new section of The Tracks at Brea Trail.  It is very nice.  The walking lane is hard packed dirt making for a most pleasant experience.  The adjacent bike line is nice too.  The day's walking thought was by Cheryl Esplin ...

Cheerio!