Mount Baldy

I have a dirty little secret.  I am not an outdoors type, although that might not be a secret, but I do love hiking, and that always results in me being dirty.  Dave and I hike a volcano on our honeymoon and I have been wanting to hike more mountains since then.

We do easy walks with the boys.  I know they aren't going up summits because well, carrying an extra 30 or 40 pounds on your back is a whole different challenge.

So I had this grand idea that I was going to hike the closest summit by myself on Monday.  I even cleared my schedule and hired a sitter.  There were several flaws in my plan.  The first is hiking alone is not a good idea,  especially in bear country.  The second flaw was the days of pouring rain and the 48 degree temperature by mid-day.  The final flaw was I was unsure what I was up against.

My friend Cherie came to the rescue.  She solved the bear problem by "packing heat" which is good as I wasn't sure how to use the bear spray and someone was charged by a mama grizzly this morning (for those not familiar with bears brown bears or grizzly are the ones you really don't want to run into).  She also brought beer.  I had visions of taking photos while we hiked, but it was too steep and required too much concentration for that....and at the top, I was too tired. She snapped some photos so it was all good.

It rained on the way down and we saw fresh bear poop that had been left between our way up and our way down. 

Baldy is about a 1.5 mile hike to the summit, so about 3 miles in total.  It was pretty steep and it rained on the way down which meant things were a bit slippery.  My legs are already feeling some burn.  We'll see if I regret it in the morning.