Five adventurous Trailblazers and one guest met at the base of Picketpost Mountain on a cold January morning to experience the challenge of climbing the mountain. I originally had planned on starting our hike at 7:00 AM, but was convinced by my fellow hikers to start later because of the cold. We started at 8:00 AM, which turned out to be a better starting time. There was just a bit of a breeze which made for a chilly start! Fortunately, we all came prepared so we bundled up, introduced ourselves and started up the trail.

The start of the hike is fairly easy to follow, with a few signs directing you to the Picketpost Trailhead. After getting onto the Picketpost Trail, the trail starts to steadily climb until you reach a large white flat rock that you have to climb. We stopped here to take a quick break before starting our climb.

At this point Arman decided he wasn’t ready for the challenge and told us he would wait for us at that spot, but we talked him out of waiting. We convinced him to return to the parking lot and call it a day. He would have waited for several hours and we didn’t want him waiting that long. Fortunately he agreed and we said our goodbyes and he headed back to the parking lot as we continued our way up.

As we climbed we noticed someone had painted red arrows showing the way up. There were also some cairns piles here and there noting the path which really helped us stay on the trail. As we climbed we were mostly in the shade so it was a little chilly, but nice because we were able to stay cool as we exerted our energy toward climbing.

Once we got to the top, we noticed the changes in the landscape. We could see the path flatten as well as the top covered with tall yellow dry grass and agave plants.

Once we made it to the summit, we checked out the mailbox, took a snack break, and enjoyed the view.

After taking a nice break and enjoying the view we headed back down. On the way down we only lost our way once but not for long.

We had such a nice day hiking. The weather was perfect for hiking up Picket Post Mountain.

Back at the parking lot we celebrated our successful hike with an after hike photo.