A Vigorous Outing

I started up Cowles Moutain at 5:48 AM, to beat the morning sun. This I did, but there still were no parking places in the lot! Maybe fifteen people passed me going DOWN, as I was going UP.

I got to the top at 6:37 AM, then headed down the Pyles Peak trail. Down and up, it was! Gmap pedometer says the whole trip was 6.14 miles. Click the link and see the route.

I manged to find eight geocaches, including the one I had to put back together. I found part of it forty feet up the trail!

Saw some pretty flowers, flowers sitting in the middle of the trail. Flowers that are gonna get smashed!



I turned back 10:01, after find a cache named "40". I don't know why it was named "40", maybe because it is nearly forty feet from the coordinates? Ha! Well, twenty, anyway!

Cowles Mountain is so far away! Can I make it back?



That's not fog, it is greasy fingerprints on the lens. Sorry!

My feet hurt terribly. The cheap hiking boots are not doing the job, and I was wearing thin socks. I don't SEE any blisters, but I was sure there would be at least two!

I got back to the top of Cowles at 11:27. Tons of people up there, as usual. I only saw maybe ten hikers on the Pyles Peak trail. Probably a hundred on the Cowles Mountain path.

At last I took enough water. Two bottles full, enough on this sunny but not too hot day. Amazingly, I saw people coming up Cowles with no hats and no water. With their kids. I saw a big ol' bulldog laying panting while its owner let people give it water. It did not look happy. It was not too far from the parking lot, so I think puppy will be ok.

I finally got to the trailhead and arrived at the truck at 12:48.

I swear this cures me of hiking Cowles Mountain for another year!