Hike like Mike

Jen and her Dad went to visit his parents in Ohio this weekend, which means it was just Mike (her brother), the dog-brains, and me at the mountain house. It looks like there was a pretty good snow on Thursday night (9/11) 'cause none of this was here when I left: Of course this was the ideal situation to try to hike to Meadow Mountain - off-trail. We actually followed a creek and then the National Park boundary most of the way, and it wasn't a worse trail than the official one. It did, however, gain altitude more rapidly meaning that I was huffing and puffing most of the way up.

Things went really well until we hit the part where the snow covered up the Juniper bushes. You'd go to take a step and find yourself in it up to your thighs. Ultimately we decided it was better to turn back than risk turning an ankle, or something similar. Of course it took us less than half the time to go back down.

Here's a shot of me with the front range of the Rockies, clearly not knowing what to do with my hands:

You can take the dork to the mountains, but he's still a dork. Oh well.

The peak you see to the far left is Mount Alice. Over the 4th of July Mike went up there with a 55 pound pack, and camped for 4 days. That might be a bit aggressive for me.

I've now failed to climb Meadow Mountain twice. Guess what I'm doing later this week while Jen's in Irvine for her last interview...