you must go and you must ramble through every briar and bramble 'till your life is in a shambles.

To climb up rocks is like all the rest of your life, only simpler and safer. Charles Montague

Morning,

It was a mild, wet day yesterday. The high was 39. The low was 34. It was 39 and cloudy at observation. The mountain received .20" precipitation. There is no more snow on the ground and much of the ice has melted. I hiked Alum yesterday without using my spikes.

As we push further up the mountain, the minute changes that seem so apparent later in the evening when we look at our photos are invisible to us in the moment. We see the constant thickets of rhododendron, until we don't. We gradually acclimated ourselves to the dangerous footing, up top much of our photos capture exposed rock and a sea of ice along the waterbars. The air is always thickening into an ever soupier mix of grays. Solitary bursts of what look like foglights hidden behind the fields of omnipresent clouds that mix lighter shades into the sky at lower elevations are lost up top. Visibility sinks to 20 feet and the gray possesses a deepset kind of stubbornness. It is hard to believe that the sun will ever burn it off.

Top photo: Hikers emerge from Arch Rock. Above: Inspired!