Mt. Rainier, originally known as Tahoma is a tremendous beauty. Back in August I had been feeling very nostalgic for my childhood summers spent backpacking through this expansive wilderness that I so dearly loved. I longed to experience that time in my life again...my sister, brother and I exploring fields of cracked open boulders, swimming in cold lakes surrounded by tall trees and croaking frogs, and running around until the stars appeared in our big black sky; it was always as if we had the whole mountain to ourselves. I couldn't be more grateful for the freeze-dried ice cream, the portable water filtration system that made dirty water clean, and itchy bug bites that always accompanied a trip to the great outdoors. I was depressed because It had been years since I got to experience those wonderful things so I promptly decided to gather some awesome people to spend a hot afternoon running (or walking pretty slowly, as we were mostly all out of shape) around in the wildflowers.
By the end of the day I did end up getting my mountain fix and I vow to go back for a full on backpacking trip this summer, only I will bring better bug spray because we were attracting the meanest mosquitoes ever and they apparently thought our bug spray was pussy shit.
(Adventure gang, Sammie, Angel, and Kevin *note: sammie's expression, this is due to those damn mosquitos!!!)