Chris had cows on his blog.  I, naturally, had to investigate.

Saw this on CatharticInk, thought I could do it too. Rules as follows: Go to the sixth page of your Flickr photostream and post the sixth picture on that page.

Huh, okay.  Mine isn’t of cows:

It does bring back some pleasant memories, however.  This was one of my last hikes before I moved away from Seattle, and it was a doozy.  The plan was to camp with Michael near Mount Rainier, then meet Jeff and Jake at Paradise (5,400′) for a 12PM start the next day, hopefully reaching Camp Muir (10,188′) by mid-afternoon.  I had done this particular shlep three times before, and it was painfully delightful each time.  (Or is that delightfully painful? Probably both.)

Problem was, Jeff and Jake weren’t at the trailhead at 12PM.  So I waited.  And waited.  And waited.

And waited.

I finally figured that the J-team couldn’t possibly have been delayed by nearly an hour and a half and were probably somewhere on the mountain.  To verify, I had Michael drive me through the parking area.  Sure enough, Jeff’s Prius was basking calmly in the afternoon sun, clearly without Jeff inside of it.  I wiper-posted a quick note intimating that I’d rather they not depart for home without me, then took my leave of Michael and practically sprinted up the snowfield.  I figured that I’d likely see them on their way down.

It turned out that I’d catch up with them on their way up, at roughly 8,500′.  They spotted my girlish figure while taking a breather and noted that my WSDOT-orange fleece was visible at least 1,000′ vertical feet down the snowfield (roughly 3/4 of a linear mile).  They too had waited for me, and after about 45 minutes set off thinking that I’d left without them.

Yeah, that’s right.  They were waiting for me … at a different trailhead.

We made it up, then back down, and a good time was (eventually) had by all.  A lesson was also learned – saying “I’ll meet you at Paradise at 12″ is a bit like saying “I’ll meet you in Seattle at 12.”  Lake City is as much Seattle as Beacon Hill, but there’s a slight possibility that the twain shall never meet.

Now that I’m homesick, it’s time to get back to studying.