I thought this was a pretty good read.

Phoenix Seven Summits Challenge 

 

If I recall correctly, Fsocks completed the challenge this year.

Yes, yes I did.

Since it wasn't a race and it was something I very haphazardly tackeled I never wrote any sort of report.  But, since you asked,  I'll give you a few highlights.

• The first trail required a short shuttle bus ride to the trail head.  As I sit on the bus listening to others discuss how many practice hikes they did thinking to myself, "maybe I should have actually hiked some of these before today?  Nah!"  I had only ever been on Piestawa Peak about 8 years earlier.
• I spoke with Bill Graves (quoted in the article) on the bus ride back.  Cool guy and he sure didn't look his age, 72. 
• The great thing about this event as it was all within Phoenix city limits was there was plenty of opportunities to stop along the way for whatever one needed/wanted.  Between summits 4 and 5 I was getting hungry and I decided that a quesadilla sounded good.  So I stopped at a local Mexican joint and enjoyed a magical quesadilla.  As I'm sitting there I thought to myself, "I don't know that I've ever been able to sit down in a restaurant in the middle of any sort of organized event."    
• On Summit 5 I met Anthony whose goal was to complete the Accessible 4 Summit Challenge.  Fortunately some nice folks from Daring Adventures were able to assist him in his goal.  

• I met many other cool people some of who recognized me and others I recognized.  The only "downer" to the event is a couple of the trail heads have very limited parking. The winter months are prime hiking season in Phoenix, especially on a Saturday and they didn't close any of the trails down to the normal public.  So 26.4 miles turned into closer to 30 miles due to having to park so far away at times.  But, it was still a fun event.