You can't go back and see it the way you saw it then, nobody can

You'd think that I would've had enough of the great outdoors with my mountain biking trip last weekend, but one of my friends is moving to Alaska on Friday and she wanted to hike to top of a nearby mountain. How can I say no to that?

Here are some of the pictures I took while on the trail.

Some fall colors:




On the forest floor:


Some gnarly roots:


Meadow on the ridgeline:


Dead wood:


Steep cliffs:


If there's one thing people have always been good at, it's leaving their garbage lying around:


The summit that we wouldn't make it to:


Because of this:


It wasn't so much the rain, but the thunder we were hearing that made us turn back. We didn't want to be the stupid hikers that got struck by lightning. It was probably for the best as I was so sore I could hardly get out of bed this morning. It was apparently too much for an old man like me to do in one day (we hiked ~15 miles with a 4000 foot increase in elevation). Still, it was totally worth it. Next time, I'll make it to the summit.