Climb for Hospice

Yesterday Chris and I took my brother’s advice and decided to climb up Elk Mountain. Why I trust my brother for advice is beyond me. I mean, the guy used to beat me up when we were kids, why on earth would I think that he would suggest something in my best interest? I really should know better.

The hike up Elk Mtn is actually quite nice. You start off in forest,

And you go up.

And up,

And up, and up, and up… until you get horrendously tired and want to NOT go up anymore.

You joyously summit in about 2 hours,

Enjoy the amazing view (when the fog allows),

You smooch,

And you have some lunch under a tree.

And then you decide that you should keep going about 45 minutes more to reach Thurston Peak. It’s a GORGEOUS walk there, with very little ascending. Just walking along in a beautiful, silent forest… shhhh…

It will stop you in your tracks and simply awe you.

And you come out of the forest to be stopped by… snow.

Yep, snow.

However, we managed to crunch and slush our way through it, and man, was it ever worth it… on to the summit!

We added to the cairn…

*ahem*… we added to the cairn…

And happily made our way back down. It’s about two hours of descending, so if you’ve got bad knees, it’s going to take a while. But we were happy to be getting off the peak, as it was cold. Very cold. So cold, I couldn’t even get my fingers moving well enough to send my brother an expletive-laden text message. So yes, we were happy to get out of the icy fog.

See? Happy.

We had made the decision earlier on that we would stop at Dairy Queen after we had finished the climb. This made the decsending go that much smoother. It was all going so well, as we walked along in the forest, holding hands, laughing, listening to the birds. When just up ahead I see a tiny black nose come around the bend! Yay! Forest animals! However, when the tiny black nose turned out to be attached to a waddling black and white skunk, I wasn’t so happy. I believe the sentence I uttered went something like, “Awwwww… look at thAAAAAAAAGH!”

See now, Chris told me that in order to get the skunk to leave us alone, we had to yell at it, but not move toward it. That would be sure to scare the skunk away. I must tell you, it’s kind of funny having someone yelling behind you, as you’re running through the forest trying to avoid a now-charging skunk that does NOT like being yelled at. Those things can MOVE, man!

However, after we got back on the trail and stopped running, we could laugh about it.

We finally reached the car after our 5-hour hike, and joyously took our shoes off. You really must love someone to sit in an enclosed space with them while being newly-shoeless after a 5-hour hike. We just wanted Dairy Queen, man. Stinky hiking feet be dammed! Gimmie a Blizard!

So yes, Elk Mountain was a very good hike, and decently strenuous. I highly recommend it. Especially if you have someone to sappily smooch at the summit.