First mountain of the year

Near lunchtime I suddenly realized it would be a great day to go to the mountains. So I quickly decided to do, as you may have guessed, prairie mountain. It's my default fairly short relatively safe to go alone mountain. Wasn't trying to set any speed record (last time I did that I could barely walk for a week) but I did have an evening commitment and so had to push. The path varied between dry, muddy, flowing water, grippy snowy ice, and slippy snowy ice. The steeper parts almost seemed like they'd been smoothed down by a sled or something, became quite tiring trying not to slip too much. Thought it might slow me down enough that I'd have to abort. But, an hour into it I broke through the treeline, and under 15 minutes later I was sitting against the summit cairn! I'm actually quite impressed, even in good conditions that's a decent time.

Carried a whole bunch of clothes and stuff I didn't touch, but didn't know what it'd be like and have to be prepared for emergencies. The way up was mostly shorts and t-shirt with sweat dripping from the face until I put my headband on. I love my headband. Had to put on the gloves near the top in the wind, and the windbreaker once I stopped moving at the top. Didn't have much time to snack and relax, but was cooling off quickly so I wouldn't have stayed too long anyways.

Put on the gaiters for the trip down as I figured it would be slip-slidey. It was. Probably only took half the number of steps going down as I did coming up cause so many of them were several meter slides. Was pretty fun! If you're not comfortable with no traction though, or have bad balance, you'd hate it. Amazingly, never actually fell over. About 45 min to reach the bottom.

Didn't see anyone on the trail until a few minutes from reaching the bottom.

Took some fashion model shots (headband, sunglasses and jacket cool, above-knee zip-off pants, pale legs and gaiters definitely not cool), checked out elbow falls, and headed home in time for a snack before scuba. A good but quite tiring day. Unfortunately my next hike probably won't be for another 3 months.