We all slept in this morning, and made our way to the trailhead around 9:30am. My husband and Sage took the tramway up the mountain while Alex and I hiked it.
The trail was steep and steady for the first 1.5 miles. Both Alex and myself were fairly quiet and grumpy.
We were past the climber's cliff and into the scrub near the top when we heard Sage's voice and my husband playfully yelling, "Oh no, more mud!" Seems they had gotten bored of waiting and had begun to hike down to meet us. Alex was happy to see them. I yelled, "A bear, oh no!" and the girls laughed and ran toward each other. They hugged like they hadn't seen each other in weeks.
Alex's spirits were much revived with her father and Sage by her side.
She picked up her pace and seemed rather peppy for the first time on this hike.
About 0.3 miles from the summit, Sage began complaining that she was tired and wanted to fall asleep "right now!!"...Alex and I left Sage and my husband behind so we could finish our ascent without Sage trying to lay down on every other rock -- we agreed to meet them in the restaurant by the top of the tramway.
When Alex and I got to the observation tower, it was rather anticlimactic. Tourists in too much make-up and a profound lack of sweat stood at the top. It was a very different feeling from being with all the other hikers on top of Mt. Eisenhower and Mt. Pierce. We knew the people on the observation tower had ascended via the tramway, so that spiritual connection with others wasn't there. Alex had some fun lending her binoculars to a toddler and watching him trying to figure them out. He was cute, and he and Alex smiled and made faces at each other for a while. Apart from that, she didn't want to speak to anybody else.
We met my husband at the restaurant -- Sage was already asleep, stretched out on two chairs with her little fist on the table. Alex ate some fries and a few pieces of chicken, then we filled up our water bottles and headed back down.
The way down wasn't as speedy as we had both hoped it would be. The boulders made a quick descent fairly impossible (for us, anyway). We therefore took almost as much time going down as we had going up.
We both grumbled at each other a fair bit. I told my husband that I felt off today, and that Alex was not her usual cheery determined self. When we reached the bottom, however, Alex asked when we could do another hike, so I suppose that's a good sign.
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