Picket Post Mountain

   Saturday morn dawned with clear and cool skies.  A great day to climb a mountain.  Picket Post Mountain to be exact.  We have had it just outside our door for us to enjoy for the last 2 months.  Today was the day that I would be climbing that piece of geology.
    The climb left the trail head at 8am with six people in the group.  We hiked the trail about a mile up to the foot of the mountain.  The climb then really began.  The "trail" is not very well marked.  Several times we stopped and looked around for the correct path.  After a considerable amount of effort and more than an hour I reached the summit.  4317 ft  doesn't sound like much but the route was mostly nearly vertical.  We gained about 2000 ft in that last mile.  It was 10 am when I sat down on a surprisingly comfortable rock next to the climb register that was stored in a well-used mailbox.        We spent a couple of hours enjoying the view and started the descent at Noon.  It was more difficult than the climb.  The descent is more dangerous because you are fighting gravity all the way.  You are fighting to keep your body weight from pulling you too rapidly toward the center of the earth.  Being tired doesn't help.  Having the weather cloud up and even sprinkle a little helped us get safely back to the parking lot just before 3pm.  Tired but happy.

We will go up that canyon straight ahead.

Looking down the canyon.  It is steeper than it looks.

Happy to be on the summit.  Notice the mailbox register to the left.

 A great day indeed !!!