Peacocks Got a Win

Can I get a Whoop Whoop ?

Joe and I successfully hiked the Cathedral Rock trail at Mt. Charleston.

This is the view of Cathedral Rock from way down at the parking lot. The trail is overall 1.5 miles to the top and it goes up by 1000ft (from 7600ft elevation to 8600ft). That is much steeper and more drastic a change in a short amount of time than we will encounter at the Grand Canyon. This was a good dry run.

We packed our bags full with all our gear and used the trail as a dry run. Joe's pack weighs about 50 lbs and mine is 30 lbs, but will be around 38 once I add my Camelbak water bladder.

These are our packs resting on the ground when we got to the top.

So we got to see some cool stuff. The trail crosses an avalanche chute which is populated with quaking aspens because they do their yoga to stay nimble and flexible under the weight of the snow. Check out these views.

I love the outdoors. We saw a mule deer hanging out in the aspens. He was really hard to spot, but when he moved the brnaches rustled and we shot him (as in took his photo).

There is quite an impressive view of the avalanche damage. It looks like someone came through with a chain saw and mowed down all the trees in one big massacre. (That lame simile is for all you Halloween-lovin' folks out there.)

Even in this small photo you can see how flushed my face is. We were working up quite a sweat becasue the trail is steep and made of loose rocks. It is like walking through sand on the beach. Every step is struggle because the ground gives way and slides around.

We saw some cool rock formations too. This is a random cave on the rock face.

Then there were some strange perfectly round holes. How does this even happen?

We did a little geocaching too. This one was easy and not very challenging, but still it is fun to find a cache. We took a mini deck of mickey mouse cards and left a super bouncey green ball with glitter in it.

Look at that tiny trail. It is so far!

This view is from a few feet from the peak. You can see the smoke haze across the valley. It is funny because the local TV news is always blaming Vegas' maladies on somehting other than Vegas. So the tactic they take with the CA fires is that California is the root of our air quality problems.

We have reached the summit. The little bitty town below looks like one of those Christmas villages.

So we made it. It took about about 2 hours to get up and only 1 hour back down. It was a great trip and perfect dry run. I think we are ready for the GC. T-minus 4 days and counting.