Thunder Mountain

Our hiking schedule said, "Thunder Mountain" for Saturday. The weather agreed. I figured we'd hike for about four hours and call that good. So, I boiled some eggs and baked a big potato. Mr. X filled water bottles and found some reallllly old jerky we desperately needed to rotate.

The first couple hours wound by. We were making slow progress through the trees, snow and windfalls. At about noon we stopped in some snow - at about the same place we lunched when Mr. X's brother visisted - to eat our potato and jerky.

We soon stepped into the steepest part of the trail. Because we could dig our feet into the snow, the going was okay. Eventually we reached the last push to the summit and learned that wearing slick, nylon pants is a recipe for disaster when scrambling on old, alpine meadow grass. Mr. X was standing at the top shouting for me to "hold on and dig in".

At the top we hung out with eagles, until Mr. X realized it would be offensive to eat boiled eggs next to a Bald Eagle. We spotted sow and bear cub and wolverine tracks along the ridgeline (Mr. X initially thought these were rabbit tracks, but the nail marks made him think they were wolverine).

I caught some zzzz in the warm, plush heather and moss. I also caught my first sunburn of the season.

Mr. X mentioned that we'd been hiking for 5.5 hours, that we were down to a few cups of water and totally out of food, so we turned around. Fortunately, near the bottom, Mr. X remembered a bag of chocolate chips which we forced down our throats. We were grateful to get home to eat yoghurt with strawberries as well as a homemade pizza.