Somewhere in the mountains near Mexico City (day 2)

You might want to read yesterday's post first because I only posted them within minutes of each other!

Written Feb 16…7:30am

Yesterday morning, we were trying to find a trail to a lookout. We went for a walk around 9:00am, expecting to be gone an hour or two. We didn’t get back to Sherman until 1:30pm!

We found a trail alright! The temperature was perfect for hiking, about 18C (65F) but it got cooler the higher we climbed. And the trail was exactly the way we like it. Maintained enough to know where the trail was, but not so much that it wasn’t natural.

The trail leads up the mountain that you can see just to the left of the clouds.

Heading uphill

Hundreds of switchbacks!

Only two problems…the higher we went, the higher we wanted to go. But we weren’t really prepared for being gone this long. We only had one water bottle, so it’s a good thing it was cool outside. But we had no food with us and so we did get a little hungry.

Other problem was that I don’t think we were quite used to this altitude. It was a very steep hike. Some parts were so steep we had to hike for two minutes and rest for two minutes. The hike started around 9,000 ft and the top was around 12,000 ft. Our systems aren’t quite used to this and both of us complained of feeling a little light headed at times.

At the top, the views were fantastic! Well worth the hard work. Any of you non hikers will never know the feeling of accomplishment when you climb a hill under your own steam to experience the view from the top. You feel like you’re on the top of the world!

Can you see Sherman? No?

Now can you see him?

This plant was actually growing out of the side of the rock face.

Heading back downhill.

Ruth had baked some chocolate chip cookies earlier in the morning, and a couple of those went down really good when we made it back to Sherman. We relaxed for most of the afternoon, and Ruth baked some granola bars. Around 6:00pm, the park ranger ( a different guy from yesterday morning) came by and asked if we would move to beside the administration building. Said we were welcome to stay the night, it was no problem, but he said we were safer closer to the building. Okay, no problem so we moved. We’re heading out at 11:00am this morning anyhow, although once again this won’t get posted until we find some internet.