Drinking Tea and Climbing Mountains

Last week I struggled with a random version of the sniffles / cold dealy. I think I overworked myself with joy while watching the Giants win the Superbowl. I discovered the mass amounts of tea left in our apartment from the people who lived here before and discovered how convenient our tea kettle is. Mmm...

After ice climbing two weekends ago, the same group plus Jeff minus Vesna and Pat headed to the high peaks to climb Algonquin the second highest peak in New York State.



The trail passed by this rock formation on the way up. It was eery because of how black and white it looked (that picture is color).

The last half mile-ish before the summit is in the high alpine. You instantly go from hiking in snowy woods to harsh tree-less icy fun land.



There we are on the summit. Isn't the visibility awesome? The way up and down in the high alpine was pretty close to white-out conditions. There are big cairns (piles of rocks) to guide you up and down so it's sort of like connect the dots.



We did substantial butt-sliding on the way down. This was a very fun way to get down the mountain quickly...

Snow tonight! Woot!