"Summit #3. Ok – Finally…. This is the last time I climb this hill. I have too many other hills and peaks to summit. This time was specifically to get some good shots of an owl nest and some owlets that I happened to see during my second trip to this hill. I only had my cell phone with me the last time and this time I took my girlfriend’s good DSLR camera! Oh yeah! Gonna get me some owl pictures! The hike in was uneventful, although a cool front had moved in bringing some clouds and cooler weather. I got up to the fence, dropped my pack and got out the good camera and started making my way up the slope, trying not to get too close to the nest so I didn’t spook the parents and have them abandon the nest or attack me. Hey – Owls are predators with huge oversized talons that could perform some serious damage to me…. I bet. I don’t want to be the first person killed by an owl…. Anyway, I made my way around the nest and could make out some light grey fuzzy shaped at the top of this next. I could also make out the larger parent who calmly positioned itself in a palo verde tree between me and the nest. I worked my way around along the slope to get some good shots. I got a a fe..." — lawrencebaker • May 8, 2017

"Summit #2. Now that I found the easy route Middle Mountain from the Deems Hills park, it was time to go back and retrieve my sunglasses from the entrance to the bee hive. I parked my car and started hiking, retracing my return route from the first time I climbed this hill. But this time, I came prepared. Upon reaching the top, I found the bee hive again, and backing off to a safe distance I unpacked my supplies - two extendable hiking poles, a pair of needle-nose pliers and some gorilla tape - and got to work. I taped each handle of the pliers to one of the hiking poles and extended the poles to make a 4 foot "retrieval device". Not exactly the CanadaArm on the International Space Station, but it would have to do. With my jerry-rigged grabber, I slowly approached the hive from the back side, being careful not to disturb any of the sentries that were buzzing around and being ready to retreat and leave the glasses there if things got too hairy. I slowly crept up onto the hive over the rocks and then I spotted them! The glasses were still there! I slowly laid the hiking pole-pliers onto one of the rocks and carefully slid them over to the where the glasses were. Finally, wit..." — lawrencebaker • Apr 27, 2017

"For such a small, nearly insignificant hill, this summit trip, and the two that followed contained more drama, frustration and annoyance than I expected. This report is for the first trip. Why would I want to summit this hill three times, you may ask? Keep reading... Middle Mountain is the eastern most hill in the State Trust Land area west of I-17 and north Jomax road in the north Phoenix area. I parked at the neighborhood over by Deems Hills park, crossed the canal, headed north and then turned to the east after about a 1/4 - 1/2 mile. There are a lot of tracks and trails that criss-cross this area. I took the route that looked, (from the google earth view) the best way to the hill - making use of the tracks as much as I could. During the first part of a hike I got to watch a falcon riding the wind currents above me, occasionally letting out a screech. That was the coolest part of the whole hike, because about 2 miles into it, the tracks and trails faded away and I was left to bushwack the rest of the way to the hill, fighting though cactus, scrub brush, weeds and dry grass, which stuck to my socks and made me look like I had hairy canckles. The going was much slower than..." — lawrencebaker • Apr 24, 2017