Climbin!

A year ago this time I posted an entry about hiking Baldy Mountain with three of my friends. Unfortunately we got to just over 13,000ft and decided we were exhausted. This year however, I not only made it to the peak, but I also had plenty of energy to spare! I've been working really hard this year to eat right and stay in shape, and it really paid off. Unfortunately I didn't bring my GoPro like an idiot, but here's our adventure in iPhone photos and some of my friend Kate Payne's photos. Remember that when I state a phrase like "a couple hundred feet from the peak," that's vertical feet... not how many feet we actually climbed, which can sometimes be 6x the vertical feet. Another misconception about climbing a mountain is that you climb up on the way up, and down on the way down... but that is so not true. On top of the switch backs below treeline, there are a ton of ( what I like to call mini mountains) on top of the actual mountain, so you're constantly climbing up and then back down while gaining altitude. This makes climbing Baldy really fun, but I guess also exhausting for some.
*Don't forget that you can click on the photos for bigger versions.

Tripod photo by Kate. So high, yet the hike only really begins here.

Me claiming 13,000ft. This is where we stopped last year, but it's only the beginning of my entry this year.

Kate checking out the view.

Up and down and up and down.

Can you find the path?

How about this time? Constantly looking for those blessed rock stack markers.

That's a long way down...

Finally over that hill, not surprisingly the peak doesn't look any closer.

One last photo from her camera before the gnarly final accent to the peak.

These rocks are really grippy, but also loose and fragile.

Since they were grippy, I chose the "move quick so they don't break" method.

You can't look at your feet when the path gets narrow, the dropping on both sides of your view creates a tunnel-vision like effect that makes everything get distorted.

The last photo we took together before I departed on for the peak.

She had fun while I was gone...

She had fun while I was gone...

She had fun while I was gone...

After two more humps I reached the final climb!

I was so excited that my "hike" turned into a slow jog at this point.

Almost a 360° panorama from the top. The 10 pics are below.

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4. My personal favorite.

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10.