The 60+, Two Mile High Club

On Wednesday, we had a wild hare to hike the mountain behind us.  That is not unusual.  We have done it many times.  Steve, Carol, and Annelle King were with us, and we wanted to see what the burn scar was like high up.  Don and I had gone with the kids a few weeks ago, but we only got about 3/4 of the way up the mountain.  Then it got very steep and we decided not to go.

This time, after we picnicked at the same place where we stopped with the kids, we decided to keep going.  Leaving our backpacks at the picnic spot, we headed up.  Steve decided that it was "mountaintop or bust" and away we went!

The first part was not too hard, but soon we were at the very steep portion, rocks, loose soil, and nothing to hold onto.  There were times we were on all fours, but Carol found the safest way to hike over the final large rock ridge, and 1.5 hours later, we were at the top.

Two old people just hiked a too steep mountain and survived!

We were surprised by a few things.  After summiting the rocks, we ended up in a large meadow.  We had no idea it was so flat!  We found an area that the fire totally missed, which gave us a reminder of what the forest was like pre-fire and how it is now.  How the fire missed this one area is beyond us . . . but I guess that is the way Mother Nature operates.

We were also surprised that we could not see down into Indian Creek.  There were so many trees and so much slash that it was impossible to see beyond the meadow.

Of course, when I looked down at what we had just climbed, I was not about to go down the same way.  Scary, scary.  We walked toward the Pecos until we could find a gentler spot to descend, and then we came back toward the Holy Ghost.  Eventually we came to the backpacks and within a half and hour or so, we were at the cabin . . . hot, thirsty, and filthy with charred dust.