A Near-Death Experience

Well Beej, it looks like you may not be the only one to have experienced a near-death experience while hiking in the past couple months! (Although yours was probably more dangerous than mine was.)  A couple weekends ago, on the night of the blue moon, Andrew and I decided that we wanted to hike Timp, since it was a goal of ours and neither of us have done it yet.  We gathered three friends to come along with us and determined to depart from the trailhead around 1 am in order to experience the sunrise from the summit. 

The night was a little bit cloudy, but no cause for particular concern.  We were a little disappointed not to have much moonlight to guide us, but otherwise we happily and speedily hiked up the trail.  We got to the saddle, which is a flat plain stretch about a quarter mile below the actual summit, in good time, at around 4:45 am.  We started up the steep incline.  That's when we started to notice quite a few lightning flashes off in the distance.  We began to be a bit concerned, but since we were so close to the top, and the lightning was still so far away, we continued.  Unfortunately, the rain started soon after.  A light sprinkling, but still unpleasant.  The lightning became closer and more ominous. We had a quick huddle and decided that it was not worth it to keep trekking up the increasingly more treacherous muddy incline.  So we turned back.
Almost immediately, it started to POUR.  I haven't been in rain like that for a looooong time!  The hill got really slippery.  Still, the lightning came closer and with increasing frequency.  We settled into a light jog, trying to avoid slipping in the sticky mud.

We got down to the saddle unscathed, which at least provided respite from the danger of falling and breaking an ankle.  But not so lucky for us was the fact that the saddle had absolutely no trees for in the half square mile area.  We were the tallest things on the plain, and the lightning was only getting worse.  We counted the seconds between the the flashes and the rumbling thunder, alarmed to count fewer and fewer seconds in between.  We picked up our pace, heading for a grove of trees not too far away.  All of a sudden, POW!  There was a flash that lit up the sky brighter than Arizona at noon.  I saw the lightning strike about 500 feet away, an instantaneous flash and deafening roar of thunder.  We all yelled in fear and broke into a sprint, finally reaching the safety of tree cover.  The rain was relentless, and despite our coverings we were all completely soaked. 

We waited a bit before heading down.  The rain eventually stopped.  But if you think the way down was completely uneventful... that was not the case!  We almost ran headlong into two huge male moose!  They were happily munching away at trees on the trail, completely blocking our way.  It was cool to see them up close, but moose can be pretty dangerous if provoked, so we had to slowly maneuver our way past them by cutting through a switchback.  Luckily, we made it safe and sound to the bottom of the trail!  The picture shows us happy to be alive at the bottom, in beautiful morning sunshine.  It was quite the adventure! Not one I'm going to forget anytime soon :)  Hopefully I'll have a chance to actually reach the summit someday.  Let me know if you want to visit and try it with me!