We climbed a mountain!

And then we were dead.

Okay. You already guessed that was hyperpole, because I am writing this. Man, we are tired, though. I found a hike called Pen-pych Circular (on Pen-pych Mountain – capital M Mountain. I am not sure why that is significant, but Keith just said it to me, so I am saying it to you) that is not very far away. Maps said it would take 55 minutes to walk to the trailhead. Ha! We did it in 85! (I take my victories even when they are not victories!) We tried to take a bus. The bus was going to take 11 minutes. I do not like public buses because – I just deleted a whole big thing on why buses stress me out, because nobody cares – I am stressed by public transportation. Anyway, I was game for the bus, because it was going to get us to hiking without hiking. We waited. The bus didn’t come. The app said we were not in a zone. I felt like we were in a zone. We were standing next to a bus sign. We waited. We looked at the sign that designated one bus as a Sunday bus. We wondered if perhaps only limited buses came on Sunday. We gave up five minutes after bus time and started walking. We walked for almost 5 more minutes when the bus passed us. Gah. It is only scheduled once/hour, so we kept walking. We could have made faster time going home and waiting a second time for the bus. But we didn’t know that then. (Some of the time was spent navigating. One time we sat on a bench and pondered our lunacy for awhile.) As we were almost there (or so I thought, because really, there was quite a bit more walking) we passed a parked taxi. I was told there were no taxis or Lyfts or Ubers or cars-full-of-people-who-want-drive-me-places-for-money-of-any-kind in this valley. It was a bit disappointing. (But would I have called a taxi? Probably not. Did I think about calling the taxi for a ride home? The entire time we were hiking.)

We finally got there and officially started hiking. There were no trail markers and I was pretty sure we would be lost and have to be those incredibly stupid people who have to be rescued when they wander onto a mountain and never come back and their people worry. Except that we hadn’t told anyone. We have no people. That was mildly concerning. Keith was not concerned. We came to a fork in the trail. We picked go up. The other path joined back up in 200m. We spent too much time wondering about that.

We came upon a little waterfall. I took its picture and thought perhaps we should just turn around and hike back down and start the walk home. Keith said, “A little further.” I said this was the big waterfall. There is another, taller, skinnier one farther. We went on. We found another waterfall and I took its picture. Should we head back down? “A little further.”

We found another waterfall, quite a lot bigger waterfall. I really liked it. I don’t know that I have ever been to a waterfall when there was no one else there. It was really nice. I figured we were going to go back down, so I lingered longer. I took lots of pictures. What is it about falling water? So mesmerizing. The sun was in the wrong place to get any good pictures, but I took them anyway. I won’t make you look at them.

I had mentioned that if we were high enough on the other side we would be able to see the valley with the towns in it. Keith said, “A little further. See what we can see.” The trail got really rocky and narrow and we had to scramble a bit (always makes me feel very hiker-y when I have to scramble). The trail was hard to follow at points and I wondered why no one had piled up rocks to show us the way. I was going to be helpful and pile up rocks, but we were high and I was very busy not thinking about how high we were.

Then we were on top. And it was cool. We were standing by two flags that Keith had pointed out while we were on the ground and I said we would not be going there, because I didn’t think there was a CHANCE our hike was going up top. I thought we were going around the mountain. The map showed going AROUND. I did not pay attention to the little lines that show you are going up. I was not in charge of navigation (which is obviously good, because I only use little piles of rocks).

We SUMMITED THE MOUNTAIN (not sure that’s right, but I’m going with it) and headed back down. Going down is hard on old people knees. That is why we are sorta dead now. Below is a picture of Keith just hopping over a fallen tree that I got stuck on and had to be rescued (not by firemen, or anybody other than Keith). Then there is a picture of him laughing because I was crabby at him for making it look easy. (There is not a picture of him laughing so hard “he fell off the trail”, because I asked if he thought I was sturdy. And then informed him that I am not sturdy.)

Keith felt with great confidence that if we stood (nothing hurt while we were moving. Standing was kinda a drag) for 15 minutes next to the bus sign (right outside the parking lot of the hiking!!) the bus would come, we would figure out how to pay without the nonfunctioning app (still not in a zone), and we would get bussed home.

AND IT WORKED!!!!!

I asked what Keith wanted for dinner and he said, “Rhondda Pizza and Kebab. And I am going to order a lot of food. And we are not going to share any of it. Not even an order of fries.” And so it was.