Goal: Be a Mountain Girl

With every first step expect more subsequent steps, straight uphill until you feel like you might pass out. I think Teddy Roosevelt said that. While my lovely pals, Traci and Susy were writing beautiful posts for me, (check 'em out down there), I was heading up a mountain. I've been heading up many mountains in Aspen. My brother, the insane scientist mountaineer and his two girls lead the way here, early in the morning when the moon was still up in the sky, just a few feet above where we are headed. We are trekking up to Buckskin Pass, where we are about to gain 4140 ft. in 8.28 miles. (sounding mountain-y huh?)


Easily reaching a view of Maroon Lake. No problem.



Pretty wooded trails where we witnessed "behavior": A red-bellied woodpecker protecting it's squawking baby birds from a hole in a tree, a weasel running past with a vole in it's mouth, a marmot complaining from the rocks, me breathing really hard, possibly experiencing some nausea and trying to say, "please let me turn me back...please..."

We get to Crater Lake where we water the woods, eat some gorp (that's mountain talk for granola or something) and rush off straight uphill.

See how far ahead they get? Not that it's a competition between me and some teenagers or anything...



Not bad mountains! Nice work at being beautiful!!! Thanks clouds for moving fast and never being the same twice! Also, thanks for not turning into "weather" (mountain talk for lightning and cold hard rain.)

Mountain confession: this is as far as I made it. I used to live at the top of a five floor walk-up in Manhattan and we were leaving oxygen canisters right around the third floor, soo.... I was able to chill out, eat my lunch, take pictures of
lichen shaped like map of the world and lots and lots of wildflowers which I will show you some more of some other time.



See these pictures below?

That's the pass up there, the swath with the snow under the cloud. I was in plain view of it and kept wondering if I should keep going. It felt pretty great when my body gave me the big f you you crazy wench. I listened. Finally the nieces and the brother came down. The rest was a piece of cake (if the cake's calves and feet hurt really bad at the end).

The end.

Next installation: how I decide to give up fashion girl and become a true mountain girl.