Last night I went on a full moon hike at Usery Mountain Regional Park. Ever since my school aged best friend Jerry Yates took me hiking I have had a passion for it. Before moving to Arizona I hiked almost every weekend, but sadly I haven't been able to find too many people interested in or capable of doing them with me. I've never had issues with hiking alone but in this area it's always a good idea to do it with another person. Photos of my hikes with Saliane and Kari can be found in my photo gallery.
This particular hike was a simple 3 mile loop that started right about the time the full moon was coming over the mountains. My guess is there were 25 to 30 people plus a ranger and a handful of volunteers. I've never been on a guided hike before but found it quite cool because he explained a lot of the history and geology of the area and some of it was stuff I never knew. The major fact that I did not know was that Maricopa County has the largest regional park system in the United States and it's still expanding. They're even working on "The Maricopa Trail" which will connect all of them. The whole thing is supposed to be 1500 miles of trails by completion time.
My next task is to purchase a 1 year pass to the park system so I can keep doing this.