Friday 16th July 2010…an intrepid hike to Todagin Mountain!!!

This morning I have to admit I slept in till 9.30 am…Sara had three prank calls during the night around 2.30am and I had trouble getting back to sleep…..felt sorry that Sara had to go to work at 8.30am.

After breakfast and packing up my back pack I had directions for today’s hike.  The book said it was a total of  7km’s, intermediate hike with a duration of 7 hours and an elevation gain of 2500 feet.

The hike was near to here

and I went inside to see if they could give me directions to the start of the trail and to see if I could leave Ramona in the parking lot.  I spoke to the owner, Tina

and she told me the trailhead was about half a mile down the highway and then I asked her for permission to leave Ramona in the parking lot and she surprised me by telling me that she wants me to leave the vehicle there and she also wanted me to come into the restaurant when I return so she knows that I am back safe and she won’t worry.  I told her that was so kind of her and she said it is her motherly instinct!!!!

So off I go down the highway

found the trailhead

The path was marked fairly well and I began climbing right away

crossed a creek

and then my heart started racing when I saw this on the path!!!!!

I made sure my spray was handy and my wind chimes were chiming!!!!

The climb was very hard and I figure that at the start of the hike I was at 2950 feet so I was in the 5000’s now.

After almost three hours I came out of the forest and into an alpine meadow …the trail ended here so I put my shirt on a bush so I would know where to come to as I was going up to the mountain top.

Not clear but I wrote shirt in the middle of the photo and the white speck is my shirt.

This is where I was heading

It was a wonderful but very tiring hike up but please just sit back and enjoy these incredible and stunning views of lake Kinaskan and lake Eddontenajon

Amazing don’t you think??

It was a good idea to leave my shirt because I did get lost trying to find it so I was smart took out my camera and looked at the photo did a recog of the area and found it with in 10 minutes!!!!

The trip down was easy but I did realize just how steep the hike up was….

5 hours later I was back at the highway

 

 

When I got back to Ramona I went in and told Tina I was safe and I said I would buy some gas.  She told me I didn’t have to do that but I insisted so she said thank you and she would send the attendant out to pump the gas.

As the man was filling my tank he said that I was wearing a neat shirt, it was a Mexican soccer shirt, and he told me he was Mexican from Guadalajara.  So I told him I spent the winters in San Miguel and we agreed what a beautiful city that was.  I found it quite amusing that in March we were in Mexico having an attendant pumping gas and now a few months later and over 6000kms north, the same thing!!!!

Sara was happy to see me home at 5.30pm and she had a good day at work and she was playing Betty Crocker again, this time Yorkshire puddings!!!!

the meal was beautiful, thank you!!!!

Sara is on call again tonight and all day tomorrow and tomorrow night.  Already one call…….Sunday Sara is off and we are going on a full day’s road trip.

Hope you enjoyed the hike!!!!!!