Yesterday was a blustery day with high winds, a bit of thunder and a couple drops of rain. We mostly stayed inside and I even got our taxes about 90% done! We took our chances the next day and did a pretty sweet hike out through the Anniversary Narrows and up to a saddle for a viewpoint. Our out and back hike was 6.4 miles with 1,006′ of climbing.
The first part of the hike is up a wide gravel wash past an abandoned mine. Around the corner we entered a magical twisty turny towering polished rock wall slot canyon. I know that if you follow our blog, you will by now have seen countless posts of our slot canyon hikes. This one didn’t have hot springs in it like the last one, but it was just as spectacular. In a few places we had to scramble up smooth boulders and do a bit of rock climbing but nothing to intense.
After the slot canyon we continued hiking up the wash to Anniversary Ridge. This is where all the elevation gain is as the narrow rocky and steep trail snakes along the ridge up to the saddle. The clouds were starting to look serious but we pushed on up to get a view. Wow, totally worth it. The view at the top is looking down east at the Bowl of Fire which we are hiking later in our stay. We snapped some pictures and boogied on down. The trail surface on the ridge is clay like and loose. With any moisture it would totally suck but thankfully, it never rained on us.
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