And what did we learn from this little escapade?

The sun was down, light was fading, the trail was becoming harder to discern, and I wasn’t even to the top yet. A trail can be pretty easy to follow through thick brush, but once it gets onto large rocks and boulders, you have to look for trail markers. The markers are usually a few small rocks stacked on top of each other. However, with fading light they are very hard to see. Though I wanted to get to the top as fast as possible, I had to take my time at certain places. I had to pick my way from one marker to the next. When I wasn’t sure where to go, I would pause. I found that the answer usually became clear after a moment. Going up, it was fun to find the way, it was life on easy street. Going down was life on the other side of the tracks. The light was gone, there was no moon, and I’ve always found going down to be much harder than going up, even in daylight. My mind wandered a bit too much a couple of times and I found myself off the path. Discerning the correct way had become much harder. It took two hours to get up, four were needed to get down. But the same principles were still in play. I just had to get more creative and be prepared to pause a bit longer. For instance, using a cell phone display screen to light a map isn’t ideal, but it works. By the end I was tired, sore, and mentally drained. I hadn’t had the focus or discernment that would have made getting down much easier, but I had enough to get down. I guess you can’t always get what you want, but hopefully you get what you need.--Ain't it fun to steal lines from the Stones