Afternoon Delight...

The other day I was sitting in my apartment on my day off, and decided that instead of letting my afternoon waste away in boredom, I would go for a hike. I honestly haven't had the time to do much hiking this season aside from the high school butte, which I hiked a couple of times in the fall. There's a small peak that you can see from my apartment balcony that I had been wanting to hike for quite some time, so I figured this would be the opportune moment.

View of the mountain from about half a mile away.

After picking my destination and looking up as much as I could about it online, I packed up my gear and headed for a small drive at the base which I spotted with the help of google earth and advice from a friend.

I decided it was best to be prepared...fuel, two forms of GPS, and even my knife just incase I needed to kill a deer...or bear.

Laura had to go to a dinner, so I did this hike alone. It turned out to me mmmuuuccchhhhh harder than I thought it would be...probably in part because I hiked straight up it instead of routing a switchback. I had to hike though deep snow and very steep inclines, and found myself dodging animal droppings literally every couple of feet. At first I really tried to dodge the piles, then I realized they gave me better traction in the steeps than the loose dirt and gravel did so I used them to my advantage haha.

View from about 5-10 minutes into the hike, the small butte infront of the large range in the background is the high shool butte, which is right next to my apartment.

The sun went completely behind the clouds for a bit, which resulted in a very dramatic sky.

You can kind of tell from this picture that it was pretty steep.

The poop that turned out to be both a good and bad thing.

It was surprisingly a lot easier to kind through the sections of snow because I was able to get a much better footing.

Almost there!

Cool tree near the summit.

When I got to the top the view was pretty amazing. I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment, and feel like this may have been the hardest hike I have ever done in my life. I have decided recently that I wanted to really get into hiking, and this experience makes me want to hike even more!

The summit marker, once again you can see the high school butte in the background.

Panoramic shot of the view from the top. (Click for larger view)

I conquered.

On the way down, I did my first glissade down one of the snowy sections, which is basically a controlled slide. It definitely would have been sweeter if I had an ice axe...so look for that in the future :P

It was definitely nice to take advantage of the area and finally get in a good hike. I'm really hoping that this weekend I can find the time to combine hiking and skiing, and finally get out to Mt. Glory and ski the bowl!