The Cliffs of Insanity.

Sometimes, we have occasion to drive by these cliffs. I know that there is a trail up to the top and sometimes, it taunts me. I've never really given these cliffs any thought before but recently, they have been making me wonder, could I? Well, you never know unless you try, right?

We took these two with us and I was very thankful they were there. More on that later.

It's a long hike. Uphill. Not my favourite.

The scenery was definitely worth it though.

Panarama.

I spent a lot of time in this position which is probably why my back still hurts.

The trail was clearly defined in most places although the switch backs were very steep and I struggled in some places with loose gravel.

Just beautiful. If I could just get past the fact that it took over three hours to get to the top.

The trail is getting wider. We must be getting close.

Yup! We made it!! Phil is playing it safe while having a look! 

Such a gorgeous day! We would have preferred if it had been a bit cooler but thankfully, it wasn't as hot as last week.

And I made it!! I'm not going to lie, it wasn't always pretty. It was definitely a bigger challenge than I had anticipated. Going down, was pretty slick too. I sang hymns in my head to take my mind off how far we still had to go. Matty, who was carrying a huge camera suit case, made it to the top before us, took pictures and then met us on the trail. We had taken a lot of water with us, and drank it all, so he volunteered to run back to the truck, get more water and bring it back up. When he came back up with water, he then offered to run back down ahead of us to the truck and bring it up to the trail head so we could give our sore feet a break and not have to walk all the way back to the parking lot. He definitely made his walk longer by doing this! Ah, the joys of being young and in great shape! Back at the truck, I was so happy to take my shoes off and rest my poor feet! It took us just over 6 hours to complete this 1200 metre climb. As newbies to climbing, I think that's not too bad. Not sure when we will tackle it again but I'm glad we tried. 

I'm thinking though, I need to learn to ignore the tauntings of mountains and trails.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

Psalm 90:2