unofficial beginning of summer, my ass.

[ilanarama]

So, remember how last week I said it seemed to be an early summer all over the Southwest?





That's my friend Kristen and me. We and our husbands decided to climb Engineer Mountain. (Here is another photo taken in September several years ago that shows the area we were hiking in, in the foreground.) In retrospect, it was probably a leetle too early in the season. I swear it looked like this when we started.

A pleasant enough hike (well, most of it) anyway, to the shoulder of the mountain not too far below treeline when we sensibly decided to turn around. And if you're curious, yeah, my legs were kind of tired, but the worst part was the downhill. I thought my quadriceps were going to melt.

Comments

[blnchflr]

Hah, that's crazy - the two pics are such opposites :o)

[ilanarama]

Yeah, weather around here is ridiculously fast-moving and things change with elevation pretty dramatically. Especially in the spring and fall - but I have been snowed on on the 4th of July (not this hard, though).

But we often see people going for mountain hikes wearing shorts and t-shirts and not carrying a bag that's possibly big enough for the extra clothes they ought to have with them. I never go dayhiking without rain jacket and pants, a fleece jacket, a fleece hat and gloves. I actually should have had my warmer gloves with me this trip - I had thin gloves and my hands got quite cold.