Two Down, A Zillion To Go...

Wiley and I managed two short hikes today in between an appointment with the vet (for him, to get his vaccinations up to date) and another with the doctor (for me, to get my Avulsed Thumb checked out...we both got the, er, thumbs up).

Not that I'm an overachiever or anything, but I can already feel the crisp chill of autumn in the air (really!) and co-workers who are fellow hikers have warned me that snow will make some trails impassable as early as mid-September. With a long list of places where I want to leave my bootprints around here, I figure I need to get crackin'.



First was to my obsession, The Wall. Last time I tried to hike it, the stream swollen with snowmelt proved too deep, but this time, however, the water was low enough to ford easily.



Here's a shot from the southwest of the base of the thing:











And another from the southeast:










Alas, actually climbing beside the thing was impossible due to all the rocks (make that tough for me, impossible for Sir Smalls, who gave it his best). We climbed for a while through the forest paralleling it, but the way was too steep and the view less than worth it, so after about 45 minutes I turned around.





It was then that, perhaps envious that I had two trekking poles and he had none, Wiley decided he wanted to play tug of war with a stick. He slipped and the stick went tumbling down the mountainside, but before that happened I got this shot:







After our appointments, we drove north to the Never Summer Wilderness Area and climbed Apiatan Mountain. Topping out at around 10,240 feet, it's not a big deal mountain around here by any means, but it was a nice three mile hike out-and-back that Wiley could manage.



Here's a shot of him looking rather the part of AdventureDog at the summit, with the Porphyry Peaks in the background:







Right as we got to the top, the sky darkened and rain started, but I did manage to get this shot of what I think are cool clouds over Rocky Mountain National Park, just to the east: