Grand Staircase in Calico Basin

It's the middle of January and the temperatures are in the 60s. This is why I live in Las Vegas. The Meetup group scheduled a short hour and a half hike up Grand Staircase in Calico Basin at 9:30am, which gave me enough time to hike before my golf lesson. It was warm enough for people to be in sleeveless shirts and shorts (though I'm still a wimpy Floridian and had on long sleeves and pants), and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

Some of the 44 people on the hike starting up.
There's still some snow on Bridge Mountain. It was great hiking with Rick again after a several month break.

Black Mountain, the other way up

I haven't been hiking in a long time, so I was excited when Rick asked me to hike Black Mountain with him and Danika after work on Monday. We parked in a neighborhood at the base of the mountain (around Horizon Ridge and Gibson) at 6pm and headed up. It was about 105-degrees, but the heat was surprisingly mild. I've never been up this side of Black Mountain, and I like this route much better because it is shorter and has some scrambling.
It took an hour to get to the top, and the view was amazing as always. The sunset was spectacular this night, and we spent about an hour chatting at the top.
We took the paved service road down the mountain because the rocks on the mountain were too unstable to traverse at night. Of course, I fell down a number of times on the loose gravel, and Rick managed to capture one of my clumsy moments on film. It took about an hour to get down for a round trip of 3 hours, the perfect after work hike.

Thank you to Rick for sharing these pictures. This is my first hike when I didn't bring a camera (shocking!), but I can always count on Rick to take some good action shots.

Frenchman Mountain

Rick and I hiked up Frenchman Mountain. It's an awful hike up, with absolutely no scenery and endless elevation gain. But the top is an unbeatable view of the valley.

Gold Strike Hot Springs

Rick, his girlfriend Loren, and I went to Gold Strike Hot Springs for a day of scrambling. I had done this hike with Joe in January, and it was quite the challenge. It follows a creek down to the Colorado River, and much of the hike involves climbing over boulders using ropes. This time, the hike was much easier for me, I assume because I am in better shape and because I have a lot more experience scrambling now.

Within minutes, I had already injured myself. The rocks in this area are very sharp. I lost my balance while standing on a rock about 6 inches off the ground, and it cut my hand when I braced myself falling. This is not a good sign considering the boulders that I would be climbing down later in the hike are 10+ feet off the ground!

A sweet little frog that posed for me.

The creek, close to where it meets the Colorado River.

The Colorado River as seen from the trail.

Me standing under a very wimpy waterfall.

Me using a rope to climb up a boulder.