{"id":12979,"date":"2025-11-28T20:13:59","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T03:13:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/?p=12979"},"modified":"2025-11-28T20:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T03:15:11","slug":"happy-valley-hike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/28\/happy-valley-hike\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Valley Hike"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ruben had been asking for me to take him on a hike, so we decided to do that the day after Thanksgiving. Because, you know, that&#8217;s when half of the entire population of the city of Phoenix decides to hit the trail. What could possibly be better?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The hike we chose was in South Mountain Park (which was more jammed up with people than the aisles of Costco on a Saturday). Naturally, we wanted to see the natural tunnel, fat man&#8217;s pass, and hidden valley, which are the three most popular destinations in the park. No crowds here, no-sir-ee. Nonetheless, we had a lot of fun, and saw a lot of pretty. Sadly, we did not get a picture of fat man&#8217;s pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, I got to give my new compass (a <a href=\"https:\/\/silva-usa.com\/products\/expedition-neo-s\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/silva-usa.com\/products\/expedition-neo-s\">Silva Expidition Neo S<\/a>) a try. Sadly, I lost my trusty Brunton compass on my previous <a href=\"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/09\/to-hell-canyon-and-back\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/09\/to-hell-canyon-and-back\/\">backpack misadventure<\/a>. The new compass is easy to use and, I&#8217;d say a bit of an upgrade from my old Brunton. Funny thing was, I had several hiking misfits, who were using an app on their phone to see where they were, ask me if I needed directions when they saw me working with my map and compass. If only they knew&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div><p id=\"pvc_stats_12979\" class=\"pvc_stats all  \" data-element-id=\"12979\" style=\"\"><i class=\"pvc-stats-icon medium\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><svg aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\" data-prefix=\"far\" data-icon=\"chart-bar\" role=\"img\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 512 512\" class=\"svg-inline--fa fa-chart-bar fa-w-16 fa-2x\"><path fill=\"currentColor\" d=\"M396.8 352h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V108.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v230.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zm-192 0h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V140.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v198.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zm96 0h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V204.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v134.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zM496 400H48V80c0-8.84-7.16-16-16-16H16C7.16 64 0 71.16 0 80v336c0 17.67 14.33 32 32 32h464c8.84 0 16-7.16 16-16v-16c0-8.84-7.16-16-16-16zm-387.2-48h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8v-70.4c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v70.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8z\" class=\"\"><\/path><\/svg><\/i> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading\" src=\"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/page-views-count\/ajax-loader-2x.gif\" border=0 \/><\/p><div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ruben had been asking for me to take him on a hike, so we decided to do that the day after Thanksgiving. Because, you know, that&#8217;s when half of the entire population of the city of Phoenix decides to hit the trail. What could possibly be better? The hike we chose was in South Mountain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>\n<p id=\"pvc_stats_12979\" class=\"pvc_stats all  \" data-element-id=\"12979\" style=\"\"><i class=\"pvc-stats-icon medium\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><svg aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\" data-prefix=\"far\" data-icon=\"chart-bar\" role=\"img\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" viewBox=\"0 0 512 512\" class=\"svg-inline--fa fa-chart-bar fa-w-16 fa-2x\"><path fill=\"currentColor\" d=\"M396.8 352h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V108.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v230.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zm-192 0h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V140.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v198.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zm96 0h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8V204.8c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v134.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8zM496 400H48V80c0-8.84-7.16-16-16-16H16C7.16 64 0 71.16 0 80v336c0 17.67 14.33 32 32 32h464c8.84 0 16-7.16 16-16v-16c0-8.84-7.16-16-16-16zm-387.2-48h22.4c6.4 0 12.8-6.4 12.8-12.8v-70.4c0-6.4-6.4-12.8-12.8-12.8h-22.4c-6.4 0-12.8 6.4-12.8 12.8v70.4c0 6.4 6.4 12.8 12.8 12.8z\" class=\"\"><\/path><\/svg><\/i> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"16\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Loading\" src=\"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/page-views-count\/ajax-loader-2x.gif\" border=0 \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"pvc_clear\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"iawp_total_views":25,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,26,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adopted-joy-blog","category-family","category-hiking","entry","has-media"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":48,"today_views":0},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12979"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13016,"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12979\/revisions\/13016"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adoptedjoy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}