Today was supposed to be the day I started my online Statistics class. It looks like I will end up having to postpone this (again) as it requires all tests to be proctored. I am only half sad to be honest, it would have been a pain to do this summer. Otherwise our day went fantastically. We drove to literally the middle of nowhere. We drove miles and miles of unmaintained forest roads that just about killed the van's suspension and finally ended up in our destination spot. Apparently that was the easy part. We decided to do the upper level hike not realizing that when the sign said "Upper" it meant straight up. The trail was totally vertical and incredibly intense, yet somehow blissfully enjoyable. We climbed through a beautiful mountain forest with lots of great views of the valley below. We kept going until we ended up hiking in snow.
The difference between hiking on dirt and in snow is really something to behold. We weren't entirely prepared for the snow so we slipped...a lot. Eventually Isaiah found a walking stick and I found a better path so we made it almost to the top. We stopped just short at the advice of experienced hikers coming down the mountain. They warned that a mountain goat had been bothering them at the top and advised against going up. Between their advice and the several warning signs we had seen we decided to take the mountain goat threat seriously. The best part of the day and maybe overall so far was coming down in the snow. The hikers we had seen were very prepared and had snow axes so they took part in glissading down the mountain side. For those of you new to that term (we were too) it involves sliding down the snow in a seated position and using a snow axe to slow you down. Since we had no snow axe we settled for sliding down on our butts and had the time of our lives! It was so much fun to slide down the snow and maybe even more fun as I was in jeans and Isaiah didn't have any gloves. We clearly had so much fun that a couple from Kentucky tried sliding down too. -A
View from Mt. Elinor
View from Mt. Elinor
On Mt. Elinor
On Mt. Elinor
Goat warning at trailhead for Mt. Elinor
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