I don't think I can express my experience through words. Ill try. Here I am new to town and up during the ungodly hours and spontaneously decided to go watch the sunrise. With a quick online search I decided camelback would be my poison of choice. The average person would probably think a young woman shouldn't go hike up a mountain all along in the morning but I wasn't thinking negatively it was a spur of the moment. I read enough articles that helped me prepare myself. I was ready by 6:45 am I was out of the door. Parking wasn't hard to find because I knew ahead of time to leave my car on cholla LN. I made sure to park legally to avoid a ticket. I grabbed my backpack and up the mountain via cholla trail I went. I was under te assumption that echo trail was still close but later found out it wasn't. I made friends going up and it was fun to reach the saddle and just take a breather. They sadly headed back down and I was left deciding if I should really continue to the summit alone. Here come an old wise man with his dog who gave me a wonderful pep talk. he basically said what do you have to lose (well my life for starters sir haha) but seriously he told me If I quit half way ill end up regretting it. So I pulled up my big girl's pants well in this case my tight ass yoga pants and kept telling myself how fun this is. There were several times when I looked for blue dots, I didn't see 'em and had to use common sense. once I reached the summit, I was in awe. I completely forgot how steep or tough the climb was, I was just taking in the beauty. I love nature. I'm in love with Scottsdale. I rested, ate an apple, drank some water and took lots of flicks and was ready to head back. It was a quick hike down but the entire time I was saying to myself "how the heck did I get all the way up there" haha guess it's true after all, it's all in your head. you are stronger than you think. This was a wonderfulworkout i didnt go to the gym that day. Next time ill go up via echo trail and see what the hype is all about.