Squaw Peak

I went up Squaw Peak as a late evening walk on Sunday night. Since summer is here now the days are getting longer and longer, so a 6.30 hike on of the city walks is not a big deal.

But even with the brighter evening the police choppers did a run across the mountain to make sure the weekend hikers were ok and no-one was stuck, or had fallen. This happens occasionally; just last weekend a hiker fell off one of the Papago Buttes and died. It was in a difficult enough spot that the body could not be recovered until the next day when the sun rose again.

I have been on Camelback when a police chopper has landed and taken an injured child away to safety. Apparently the kid had fallen and split his head open. Between cell phones and helicopters the child was quickly lifted to a local hospital. It caused the large numbers of hikers to stop and gaze at the skill of the pilot handling the chopper as he landed in an area that was pretty small.

Went up Camelback Mountain after work. It is still over 100F in the late evening and the climb is a strong vertical one. It is a popular hike even during the week.

The oft photographed out-crop on Camelback. This was in the late autumn evening.

I planted Saguaros from seed this evening. It is my second try at it. Despite giving off 250,000 seeds each year, the high protein seeds rarely are given a chance to germinate.

Most Popular on South Sea Republic

The articles that have been viewed the most:

Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix

Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for Phoenix, Scottsdale and Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area. This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most; My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are AZ88, Postinos, Bomberos with Grazie, Humble Pie, Orange Table, The Vig, Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on phoenixeatsout.com

Most Popular Hikes in Arizona

Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak. For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in Tom's Thumb and Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.

Alternate Australian Constitutions

Between 2004 and 2009 this site, southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues. One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome: The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.

Archives For South Sea Republic

South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then; The articles are ordered by views.

Who Is Cam Riley

Cam Riley I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident. I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end. I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.

I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now. The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.

Websites Worth Reading

Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;