7,581. That’s how many steps it took us to get to the top of this “moderate” 2.5 mile hike summit. We’re gonna let that sink in for a minute…

Dava usually finds the hikes that we do, and since we’ve been doing a lot of hiking and have summited ZERO amounts of mountains, we decided this one would be a great starter. The website called this hike a moderate hike, with approximately 5 miles round trip. The first thing that came to mind was, “2.5 miles to summit a mountain? We can freaking climb 2.5 miles”. What the website failed to mention that it was 2.5 miles literally straight up a mountain. So, basically we were lied to. According to our tracking app, we climbed 216 flights of stairs. This hike is not to be taken lightly.

It was about 22° out when we pulled into the parking area. Even though that seems to be the norm when we go out, we were still freezing our asses off. The beginning was an easy, flat, well groomed trail that stopped you after 0.1miles to ask you where you wanted to go next. The misleading tenth of a mile was apparent almost immediately after we walked passed the sign as we began our incline.

We continued to hike while the ferns gave high fives to our knees, taking in all of the beauty from the heavily mossed forest. The trail was littered with soft green everywhere, and we were appreciative of the sunrise turning the trees into warm colored glow sticks.

The hike took a large portion of the morning, which was a little surprising, but then again, not so much since we stop frequently to take pictures. When we were finally getting to the point of seeing blue peeking through the trees, we were hopeful that the summit was near. And after a several stops, one food break and a pep talk, we had finally made it. It was the moment we had been waiting for… THE SUMMIT!

The sun greeted us in it’s own congratulatory way, as we huffed to the top to sign our names in a notebook kept in a wooden box. What a feeling it was! Our FIRST summit! Our elevation? 3,226ft. And even though it was only 2.5 miles, we were reassured that it wasn’t a simple hike by the passerby’s that stopped to talk. One couple even compared it being similarly difficult to Mt. Defiance.  We’re sure they were just trying to make us feel better.

We stayed at the top for about an hour or so, mingling with other hikers and chatting up those who seemed to know more about the mountain than us (Hi, Ike!). Once we had taken enough pictures and mingled with enough friendly folk, we started our descent- Which was again, pretty challenging. By the time we got to the parking lot, we were both limping because we’re old because of those darn knees and hips. We may have not even made it back without trekking poles- Thanks REI!

All in all, this hike was a great starter pack to an even bigger summit that we plan on doing in the near future. We set our minds to something, and just did it. We’ve come a long way of just taking random hikes and we can only imagine things are going to get better from here.