This mountain was tough, physically and mentally. It introduces itself with two miles of a steep climb on loose rock and scree. Spoiler alert, that’s how you end the hike too except you’re sliding down it trying not to slip off to your death. It was crazy hot and the sun relentless. We were having traumatic flashbacks from climbing Mt. Wilson. Jake muttered “persistent bastard” under his breath more than once. At the summit, we took a short rest to regain some hit die prior to starting the long descent.

With two miles of the jagged rock, scree descent from hell, we saw that we had just over an hour to get to the only beer served on tap within a twenty mile radius. We needed to fly and fly, we did. Jake took off with the car keys to make it to the atm while I tried to convince a tired trail doggo that shade was an unnecessary mind trick. I was not very convincing so he got a free ride while I tried to not kill the both of us skiing down the sheer mountainside on loose rocks. He miraculously gained his energy back when he jumped from my arms at the end of the scree to bark at a neighborhood dog, hmm.