Getting Skinny Hiking Fat Man’s Pass
There are a lot of areas to hike in the greater Phoenix area. We have spent some time exploring them on our weekends that we stick around the valley. One of the best adventures we found is Fat Man’s Pass. This quick hike start in a neighborhood at a trailhead called, Mormon Trailhead. There are a couple hiking and mountain biking trails out of this trailhead. We set out to do Fat Man’s Pass. With little information, other than we would be going through some arches and cave like features along the way, we set out for a fun day in the desert sun.
Mile: 36,901
Quote of the Blog: “We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.” - Hilaire Belloc
Song of the Blog: “Fat Man” - Jethro Tull
When we said that the trailhead was in a neighborhood, we mean we parked in front of someone’s house because the parking lot was full. I bet the people that live here hate it! The hike was a really nice hike. The trail was wide and well maintained, but the signage was a little poor. We ended up getting lost at one point and adding another half mile to the hike. The trail is 3.8 miles and starts with some elevation gain, before leveling out along a ridge line.
As we hiked up, we found a couple really cool natural arches. The first one was really wide and long. It was more like a cave with two massive entrances. It was nice to get into some shade for a moment and give the desert sun a break. We initially thought this was the Fat Man’s Pass, but we were wrong. We obviously didn’t do too much research on this hike. When we actually got to the “Fat Man’s Pass” feature, we quickly learned the name is a joke, and the pass is actually a tiny little slot in the rocks that is no more than a foot wide. I was personally not feeling it, due to some claustrophobic feelings. On the other hand, Amity squeezed her way through it. As much as I chickened out, I was proud of her for braving it!
Right after this feature we took our wrong turn. We had ended up on a mountain biking trail, and headed the wrong direction. A quick backtracking to the pass, and we quickly found our route again. Cresting over the last little ridge as we finished the hike, we had a great view of the Phoenix skyline. For the size of the city, there is not much of a skyline, but it was still a pretty view. After all, we are doing a hike that started and finished outside of someone’s house. Overall, it was a good hike and we are glad we did it. Local weekends like this allow for some relaxation around our backyard pool! We will be doing some of that for the rest of the weekend!