Mountain Escape

 

Teanaway Ridge always feels special. The very first backpacking trip we ever took was here. All of these beautiful yellow flowers took over the hillsides and peppered themselves into the landscape as we hiked up- and it was magic hour so the lighting was perfect. Sadly, we lost all our photos from that trip, my camera malfunctioned and Joshua's phone died. So we only had a few and last year when we went back we were too late and the flowers had already mostly died. But THIS time, even though we were a bit early, the flowers were back and I got so excited.

 

We waited to start hiking up until 6pm so the sun would be setting but not quite set over the mountains until we could get to the top to watch it dip behind their peaks. It's fun to have this be the third time we've been here, to know what time to hike up for all the best light and views, it feels intimate to start to get to know a place this way.

 

This hike is also special because there aren't many places that are snow free enough to backpack yet and still have mountain views. Since we were a bit early this year there was a bunch of snow up top and I didn't think we'd find anywhere up top to pitch our tent but we walked to the top of the snow pile and there was just enough snow free space for a tent and a fire!

We really lucked out at finding a nice spot, lots of dry wood, clear dark sky, Harry Potter & wine.
Work and life was really busy this April, really busy, and it was a great refresh to go out to our happy place and wake up to the first day of May surrounded by mountains. So here's to May being a little bit calmer and having more time for hanging out with friends & more snow melting so we can backpack some more!