XTreme Hike

"Never been done before." That's how Mr. X of Tucson's X Hiking Club described his intrepid plan to hike the steep Blackett's trail, blaze through dense desert to Thimble Peak, then descend through the perilous Seven Falls back to the base of Sabino Canyon. [For the record, he puts together a full range of hikes from beginner/training to... this].

For nearly ten straight hours we (he, Wafer and I) were scrambling up and down steep, near-vertical chutes. That's when we weren't hopping across boulders, traversing slide-rock above waterfalls, dodging tumbling boulders ("ROCK!") or plowing through desert scrub and cacti (in Sonora, what looks barren from far away always turns out to be a thicket of dry, stickery plants). We surprised two white-tailed deer who took off, climbing the ledges like mountain goats.

And, to reach the summit, a small rock climb (plenty of holds) then, ultimately, a 15-foot ledge with a fixed rope. A few years ago I would have been too chickenisht to tackle that. A few years ago I wouldn't have been fit enought to do all that in a day. As it was, I felt like I'd spent an evening in a Syrian prison... but it was worth it!

Check out Wafer's photoset on Flickr, with some good video of us crossing the Falls on page 2.

Check out Mr. X's videos (indexed below) and photos.

• Thimble
• Scramble
• Crevasse
• Negotiation
• Sabino
• Brush
• Slope
• Feet
• Ridge
• Rockslide
• Cliff-Out
• 45-Degrees
• Cactus
• Video
• Rock
• Dirt
• Steep
• Hallucination
• Route
• Wash
• Near-Vertical
• Canyon
• Exhausted
• Snow
• Crack
• Piece-O-Cake
• Summit
• 360
• Descent
• Jump
• Hop
• Falls
• Down

Update: Here's the GPS data you can open in Google Earth. It doesn't always line up with the terrain, but that is to be expected.