The infamous Mailbox Peak. I've hiked the old trail before so today I wanted to experience the new trail. It's nothing fancy; I hiked a lot in a dense forest until I reached where the old/new trail intersect. I dawned my traction devices around 2,250 feet as the snow started out to be slushy and ice. Then it became a hard, compact boot path all the way to the top. There are some areas of concern in the avalanche chutes, (great views all the way to Seattle, though) and as the weather warms, these areas could become more volatile. Today, I had no issues with them.

As the new trail abruptly headed upward as it mashed into the old trail, the hike became increasingly difficult. But some sort of traction device makes it much, much better. My first views were of the false summit, of course. And it was straight up. There are obvious routes and it takes a lot of kick steps and finding someone else's boot prints to make it an easy climb. The winds weren't too bad today. But it was cold.

I made it over the false summit and as I made my way around the tree line, the true summit popped into view. It was another 500-600 feet of straight up, in the snow, in your face climb. I was already gassed at this point. To the true summit was just like climbing the false summit; relentless uphill battle.

After making it back down to the top of the false summit, I glissaded down, chatted with a few people and made my turn onto the new trail to start heading back to the trailhead. At that moment, I realized my phone was missing. It must've popped out of my back pocket while I was having some fun glissading. I immediately turned around and sprinted back up to the base of the false summit. I had all kinds of thoughts running through my mind, as we are so attached to our phones, our lives are connected to these things, unfortunately. I was out of breath, wheezing, my whole body was shaking from the amount of energy I just expelled to get back to the false summit. I could barely ask the first hiker I saw if he found a phone- he told me no.

I had to charge up the false summit and retrace my steps. It was grueling. Sheer adrenaline was keeping me on my feet as I hammered in kick steps heading back up. I ran into a woman who was glissading down, asked her- no.  My heart was pounding out of my chest. I made it up the false summit and ran into two more hikers. “Did you two find a phone, by chance?” I stammered. “No” they replied. “But the guy we just passed asked us if we dropped one.”

I took off- nearly running. My hiking pole lodged itself into a tree branch and wouldn't break free- I yanked it free nearly tripping on myself. I called out, “Hey! Hey! Did you find a phone!?” I couldn't even see anyone. I just called out in desperation..and I hear someone call back. “Yeah! Is it blue?!”…it was this calm silence that fell over me. My anxiety vanished. My heart stopped racing. He has it. Thank God! I trudged up that mountain with every last bit of energy I had that those Clif Bars provided me. He had passed it on to another hiker who was on her way down and she handed it to me. I was beyond words. I was in disbelief of how all that played out. I've never experienced a miracle on the mountain before, so high up, and as petty as this was,(over a phone), I was eternally grateful. I owe so much to these people who helped me get my phone back. And what a lesson learned; secure your belongings before you glissade!

I made it back to the ol' Dodge Ram 4×4 around 3:30pm with a near empty parking lot and headed home. What a day.