Turned into a longer day than expected, but a good day! I was surprised - I shouldn't have been, but I was - by how many vehicles were there at the Piestewa trailheads by 7:00 AM. It was morning twilight, but the sun hadn't risen yet, and there were already at least 100 cars, if not more. The trail was BUSY - something that I had read about, but it was... It wasn't quite as busy as Angel's Landing in Zion a few years ago (I haven't been back since ~2018ish, and as far as I know it's been infinitely worse, hence why it's now a permitted hike), but it was well-traveled, to say the least. Tons and tons of people. I made it up to the summit - it was WINDY. About knocked me over a few times. The condition of the trail, for those who haven't been there, is a lot of stair-stepping. And dodging of people of various hiking skill/ability. After spending a little time at the top, eating some energy chews, taking some selfies, and then getting tired of the wind, I headed back down, which felt a lot better, cardio-wise, and then came back down to the split off from the #300/Summit Trail and the #302/Freedom Trail. From there... I went into loop after loop! I got lost a few times, had a few false starts, hence why my track looks like the drunk meanderings of a madwoman, but that's okay! There's a trail to Peak 1955' from either side (the south or from the north/northeast, closer to 40th Street parking area). It was steep. I'm getting the idea that most of the hiking to peaks in the Phoenix area is short but VERY STEEP. From there, I surveyed the desert and decided that I had enough gas left in the tank to go try and get Dixie Peak, which is also called Two Bit Peak? The signs were for Two Bit Peak. That trail starts gradually and then becomes, you guessed it, steep and stair-steppy and lots of switchbacks. I was getting pretty cardio locked on the way up to the third peak - tells me I have a lot of training and conditioning to do.
I've got my eyes on a route to Peak 2032' if I come back again, and I think that Peak 2068' may be doable if I had continued around the #302/Freedom Trail loop instead of adding on 1A and 8 and the #304/Nature Trail. A side note: this place is spider-webbed and criss-crossed with mountain bike single track. All over the place! There's so many routes that aren't marked or on the map, and sometimes I just went #yolo and tried one because it seemed to be in the general direction.
All in all a good day, and this is, as far as I can tell, my longest and largest solo hike since... probably September 2018, when I did Telescope Peak in Death Valley by myself. I've had hiking partners in town to do things with for the longest time, and I've tended to not hike if they're not available. I can't keep that up - I need to go out and get some serious hiking in (where safe to do so solo) even when my hiking partner is unavailable.