Camelback Mountain

The second tradition for Thanksgiving weekend is going shopping on black Friday. Stacey and I started our morning at Target where the line was so long I thought we would never get inside. I got the deals that I wanted and my 10 dollar gift card and felt pretty good. Then we went to Kohls where I bought a dress for Ali for her Christmas program on clearance and got it for a great deal. We picked up everyone else and went to the mall where we went shopping and got some more good deals for each other. It wasn't so bad to take the kids because Stacey took Ashling and Cameron took Ali shopping and I just had to shop with Annika who managed to take a nap admist all the noise.

The Third tradition is going on a hike. We chose to hike to the top of Camelback mountain. I knew it was not going to be my favorite hike when we got close to the mountain and most of downtown Phoenix was also there. We had to park very far away from the trailhead because there were too many people in their tiny area where they allowed cars to park. The houses there were amazing in size. I bet they cost a fortune to air condition!

Annika began the hike in a good mood and I expected her to fall asleep like she always does in the backpack carrier. But she didn't. After a while she was protesting and whining quite a bit and I stopped to nurse her. Nursing her didn't help and by the time we were a little ways up the trail she was screaming in protest. I finally couldn't take it anymore and had Cameron stop and I got her out of the backpack and decided just to wait on the trail. (At this point I was very close to the saddle that you can see in the picture below but I didn't know it so I stopped.)

Tony and Stacey had to stop at the saddle because dogs can't go up to the summit. But Cameron, Ali and Ashling continued to the top. Cameron said it was a trail more rugged that most sierra trail at the top and that there were placed it was 5.1 climbing. Here are some pictures of their climb up and down.

I am very bitter that I didn't make it to the top too. Instead I put the backpack on and hiked down and then hiked all the way to the car and drove up to the trailhead to pick them up when they were finished. This whole time Annika was screaming!