Billie Horn was the hike leader. Bill McCall was the photographer.

Nine hikers met at the North Mountain Visitor Center before 6:00 AM and proceeded to follow trail 100 east through the tunnel under 7th Street.

Once the sun topped over the hill, we stopped for a group photo by Bill (many thanks), and introductions. We welcomed a new hiker today!

The Rusty Spider Trail is a 4 mile lollipop trail, which features rolling terrain, scenery and history. One long side of the loop runs parallel to Thunderbird Road.

The trail was named for an old rusty sculpture resembling a large spider, which resided under a tree on the trail. The body was a rusty oil drum and was held up by 8 spindly legs of rebar. Sadly, something happened a few years ago and the spider disappeared. Spider parts were found lying around underneath the tree. The parts have been gathered and stored at the Visitor Center, with plans to reconstruct Spidey someday and place it under the same tree.

Billie explained about Trail 25, under construction, which will link this part of the Preserve to Lookout Mountain When this project is completed, we plan to lead the group to explore the new trail.

The temps remained in the 80s today and we finished our trek at 8:00 as planned. Thanks to everyone who joined us!
4 miles
2 hours.
9 hikers, which included 4 AZHC members