This is a 9.3 mile hike out of the Peralta Trailhead, Superstition Wilderness, Arizona. I have done it countless times in both the clockwise and counterclockwise directions. The route sports about 1260 feet of elevation gain according to David Mazel (Arizona Trails, Wilderness Press 1991, p. 47) We commenced hiking at 6 AM on the dot and finished at 11:35. The dialectics slowed down the peripatetics. Clockwise takes the hiker up rather than down what the locals call "Heart Attack Hill" when they are not calling it "Cardiac Hill." I much prefer the uphill to the downhill, heart stress to knee strain, though we have it on the authority of Heraclitus the Obscure of Ephesus that "The way up and the way down are the same." (Fragment 60) A second advantage of the clockwise route is that fewer fellow hikers are encountered. Human nature being what it is, the path of least resistance is preferred by the many. The fewer of the many encountered the better, or so say I. Here is the elevation profile in the easy counterclockwise direction:
Eschewing the Peripatetic approach to philosophy, Peter L. deemed us "crazy" for hiking in the desert in summer. (High was near 100 Fahrenheit on the day in question.) Hiking is a "delectable madness" as I seem to recall Colin Fletcher saying. The first shot depicts the young philosopher Spencer Case at Miner's Summit standing before Miner's Needle while the second shows what the locals call "Cathedral Rock."
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