Pinnacle Peak

What would possess me to want to climb such a peak? I wanted to check my fitness level. Which... is pretty much nil lol I mean, I did fine, really. And this wasn't actual mountain climbing anyway. It was an established trail head that didn't require any special equipment. But you start at 850 ft, and make your way up to 1,800 feet at the top.

I managed to convince my friend Monica to join me on this hike, who was reluctant at first. I convinced her with "you actually work out at a gym. I don't. I think you'll do better than me!" and I was right lol. The website for Pinnacle Peak stated that there was "easier access on the south side", so we parked there to start the hike. The south side was pretty lame. It was just a gravel road going up. And up. And up. My legs were fine, but my lungs were having issues. I'd blame it on the "thin mountain air" but it was actually quite humid where we were :P. We reached the "top", which wasn't really the top, but that's where all the views were.

We found a trail heading into the woods and decided "What the hell. YOLO", and followed it in. This was the good half of the trail. The "north side", as it were. We were shrouded in trees and the temperature had to have dropped 5 degrees. At least it wasn't humid anymore. We were still going up at this point. The top had no views because we were still in the trees. There was some nice benches to sit on, though. We began to walk back down the north side, knowing that we'd have to take the road back around in order to get back to my car. It was most definitely worth it, because the north side had all the amazing scenery.

That's when I really started to get tired, however. My legs, although not hurting yet, began to uncontrollably shake, like they had on my hike at Murphy Falls. The constant downward angle was beginning to take its toll, and I started to feel not as confident in my muscle's ability to hold me up.

We finally reached the bottom, and I'd never been so glad for a flat surface. I used my phone to make sure we were going the right way, and headed up the road back to my car.

Enumclaw has some very interesting plots of land. I'd never seen such a pristine and perfect section of houses with farmland. Each house had a perfectly manicured lawn, beautiful flowering bushes, plastic fences, gorgeous trees. And they had cows, and alpacas, and goats, and roosters, and even turkeys. Yeah, turkeys.

It was probably about a 2.5 mile walk back to the car, according to Google and my phone anyway. I wonder how accurate CardioTrainer is with elevations. Does it even know I climbed 1000 feet? I'm just not sure. My legs certainly knew. I am sore today, but not as bad as I thought I'd be. I'm definitely going to have to train on something a bit easier before I attempt that hike again!