Holbert Trail, South Mountain

We headed out this morning to visit the mystery castle at South Mountain Park, but when we got there, it was closed, so we had to figure out plan B.  A trail headed off from where we were parked, so we took it not knowing where it would go.  We started out on a paved road, but soon the road dead ended at a City of Phoenix water tank, and a trail headed up over the hill.

Parts of the trail were pretty smooth, but most of it was large rocks.  

The higher we got the better the views of Phoenix were.

This is where we stopped our hike.  The trail continued a little further, and we could see a stone building above us that was full of people, but we didn’t really want to go join them, so we enjoyed the views from our quiet little overlook and then headed back down.

This art rock was just off the trail.  It appeared to be a combination of old art, and new art.

This is what the rockier parts of the trail looked like.

The total hike was 2.6 miles from where we started.  Apparently there is an actual trailhead inside the park, but lucky for us we found the trail our own way.

This is the mystery castle that we were hoping to tour today.  Hopefully we’ll have a chance to visit it some other time.