The Wall as never seen before

Well, at least, nothing i've seen in my six previous trips to the wall. Do yourself a favor and click on these pictures below.

I can't stop staring at them. I even entered them in a photo contest. Pictures sometimes don't do a place justice, but these seem to capture the winter wall in all its white-washed, frozen glory.

The hike up this past Sunday was pretty easy, as the path had been trampled sufficiently to allow for easy passing. And without 40 pounds of gear slowing you down, we made it up in record time, probably 25 minutes. The five of us, jim, joe, hilco (cool Dutch dude), therese and i, summited at roughly noon.

At the top, we were actually warm. The wind was mild, there was occasional sun, and we had just worked our asses off climbing a freakin' mountain! The views were stunning as always, but somehow, this time was even more majestic.

Maybe it was the fresh tracks we laid...

... or the untouched patches of beautiful snow...

... or the dose of adrenaline from winter hiking.

We were happy.

We visited our usual tower.

... And introduced it to jim.

Hilco faced his fear of heights.

And, as the only aptly prepared one, joe blazed trails through deep snow for everyone.


Therese and i chose to head down about 30 minutes early, to get warm and relax. We retired to our usual family restaurant. However, we learned they do not usually operate in the dead of winter. Still, they recognized therese and i and invited us in immediately. They offered us hot tea, noodle soup, and egg tomato... all hot and all very delicious. We spent the time chatting with the little 6 year old boy and he showed us his comic books.

Therese tried to read him Winnie the Pooh and he tried to read her Mogulfat the Space Trotter, or some crap. Neither were too interested in the other's book. But it was great fun anyway.

And i learned that i don't quite yet have the Chinese proficiency of a 6 year old, but i'm really close.

~Kev