They Call Them the American Alps for a Reason

"The mountains are calling and I must go." - John Muir

Yesterday was the big day. We were heading into the the park. We had a day planned that would have us all aching and sore by the end of the day, but completely thankful that we could spend the day getting to know the park and ourselves.

With us staying in Rockport, we wanted to be packed up and in the car for an 8:30 a.m. departure. That would get us into the visitor center (just past the Thornton Lake access road and trailhead) at about the time it opened at 9:00 a.m. That gave us an opportunity to check in with the rangers to make sure our planned hike seemed OK with them as well snag some swag from the gift shop.

But before you get to the visitor center, we had to stop and get this photo by the entrance sign. In an interesting side note, a group of people from Pennsylvania arrived just behind us and took our photo. I guess it is a small world afterall.

The two kids went to Penn State, so I offered up my sympathy to them, and we were on our way!

After getting confirmation that our hike was fine, it was time to drive up five miles and about 3,000 feet in elevation to get to the trailhead.

Today was set to be about a total of 10-12 miles with us making our way roughly four miles through a dense forest before opening up a bit near a meadow. From there, we could branch to either Thornton Lake or continue on to Trappers Peak.

Much of the first part of the hike looked like what you see in the two photos above. There were quite a few shrubs and bushes up against the trail to start and pine trees shooting straight up along the ridge. Every once in a while, you'd get a clearing from the trees and a chance to take a look at some mountains in the distance.

What was nice about the first mile or two of this hike is that the elevation gain wasn't as insane as one might expect for climbing up a mountain. We were following an old, overgrown access road for the first bit of this hike.

Along the early part of this hike, we had a chance to cross several streams either by tiptoeing along rocks or using a manmade bridge to help. These streams would prove beneficial on our return hike when we were all hot and sweaty looking for something to cool us down.

Once the old access road ended, the trail became more rugged and steep. It required larger steps over rocks and roots as well as more frequent rest stops to catch our breath.

As we approached the fork and Thornton Lake, the views became a little different. The trees became a little more sparse, a small meadow popped up, and there were some more streams to cross.

There's Cara approaching the final little bit to get to the fork in the trail. She was one heck of a trooper being able to hike what she did considering she's 20 weeks pregnant.

As we got closer to that fork, you start get a chance to look over some trees and catch some snow-capped mountains in the background.

Eventually, though, we did get the fork where we had a chance to either check our Thornton Lake or hike on up toward Trappers Peak.

Before we decided on either, we noticed a small path to the edge of this ridge. When you get to it, and peak through a few smaller pines, you get this incredible view:

After we all took some photos there, it was time to get hiking again. It was about a mile to Trappers Peak, but it would involve climbing and scrambling an additional 1,000 feet in such a short distance to get there.

Cara chose to play it safe and stay behind at the fork, while the rest of went on.

Before we got to the first scramble of this hike, we found another little side path that led us to a stunning aerial view of Thornton Lake. The water was so clear that even from this height, we could see fallen trees and logs submerged at places in this lake.

Once soaking in that view, it was time to climb. These photos will not do justice to just how steep of an incline this is. Although Katie is using the trekking poles in this photo below, she broke them down and put them away immediately after this photo. The incline was to steep, and it essentially became a rock-climbing scramble to get up and over the first hundred feet or so.

At the top of that first scramble, we were treated to yet another lovely view of the mountains. I know it seems weird to have taken so many pictures of the same mountain range, but it really did blow your mind every time you made some sort of scramble and ended up seeing something like this:

The move toward Trappers Peak included a few more climbs and scrambles. Eventually, we were up along a ridge with a view of Thornton Lake to our left and a valley to our right.

The further along you hike on this trail, the less defined the trail becomes. So, when you need to know which way to go the most, there isn't always a clear answer. And when you're nearly 6,000 feet into the air and hovering on a ridge with the wind blowing, nerves start to take over.

At one point, only 100-200 feet in elevation from the summit, Dana and myself couldn't find the courage to cross over this rock that was hanging over Thornton Lake a 1,000 feet below. It was time for us to turn around while Jesse, Maria, and Katie went for the summit.

Before leaving what I'm deeming the mini-summit, I did take this video to give you an idea of what it was like to be there:

So with the sun beating down, the legs failing, and wanting to get back to Cara, Dana and I made our descent. What ended up taking us about an hour to climb only took us 25-30 minutes to get down.

Above is a photo of the first rock scramble that we did. I didn't take a photo going up, and I'm not really sure if the photo above shows you, but it was one intense climb.

After meeting up with Cara, the three of us decided to head over toward Thornton Lake while Jesse, Maria, and Katie went to the summit and then had to return.

It was nice to see Thornton Lake from a different - and much safer - viewpoint. It was good to show Cara something that she missed out while we were on our hour-and-a-half excursion up Trappers Peak.

By the time we checked out Thornton Lake, the other trio returned from the summit (they made it to the top!) and it was time to get back to our van. What took us about four hours to get up to ended up taking us just over two hours to get back down. In the end, it was a more than eight-hour hiking day. We started our hike at about 10:15 a.m. and didn't get back into the car until 6:45 p.m.

Legs were in full-blown jello mode by the end. All we wanted to do was down our water in the car, take a load off our feet, and get some dinner.

We were also thankful that we didn't run into any bears (although we did have a couple scares that ended up being an owl and another was a huge, dark boulder).

By the time we got home, five of us cracked open some local beers, got some showers, and at some cheesesteaks. The day eventually caught up to us, and we were all asleep between 10 and 11 p.m.

We got up early this morning and are about 15 minutes from taking off for today's day in the park. We're heading past Diablo Lake to Ross Lake. We are hiking about a mile to some water where we catch some canoes to the Ross Lake Resort. We have a 16-foot fishing boat rented for the day to cruise around the lake and do some mini-hikes.

As we eat breakfast, we aren't saying that we don't want to hike, but we are all feeling like today shouldn't be nearly as intense as yesterday.

It's our last full day in the park, and we are all pumped to see what it has to offer.

I'll try to get an update in tonight. If not, it'll be tomorrow morning.