Jason, Nick, Preston, and I met in Flagstaff on Friday night with the intention to climb Mt. Humphreys on Saturday.    To help with the acclimatization, late in the afternoon we met at 9,300 ft at the SnowBowl ski resort and played a bit of Frisbee.  This accomplished the task of climb high and sleep low.  We stayed at the Springhill Suites which turned out to be brand new, modern, and really nice.  After a trip to the grocery store for some climbing snacks plus a little vodka and lemonade, we walked across the street for a 5 star dinning experience at Red Lobster.  The meal turned out to be fantastic.

We set the alarms for 7am so we could get a meal in before starting the climb.  There is a new Mike and Rhonda’s near campus that still has the “hungry man special” which Jason had to try.  After the short drive, we were on the trail by 9am.  The climb was uneventful and we summited in just over 3 hours.   I can’t figure out how to make the Strava widget work (if anyone knows how to make it work in Word Press – shoot me an email at jim@skelmo.com) but I pasted the screen shot below.  Lots of pictures at this link https://plus.google.com/photos/100459942408114210497/albums/5910660409688791505  We tried to summit the other mountain, but the trail was closed so we just played on the saddle for a while.  We stopped off for a pitcher of beer and a couple of sandwiches at Crystal Creek.  Jason remarked that the Grand Rapids is the best sub he’s ever had.

After cleaning up and chilling, dinner was at a restaurant called Café Ole.  We met my college advisor and her husband there, Kathy and John Eastwood.  The meal, conversation, and company were wonderful.  Jason wanted a night cap so we had another pitcher at Granny’s Closet.  This morning we drove back to Phoenix via Oak Creek and Sedona.  Oak Creek is still as nice as always, but Sedona is a metropolis with what seemed like 10 roundabouts.

Note, some of the pics are from Friday morning when Preston and I were exploring the trails around Pine.

Tomorrow, Tracy and I head off to Oakland where we will meet Eddie O’Rourke (Tracy’s long-time trail-running bud and my JMT co-adventurer) for the start of the John Muir trail.  I’m not sure if I will be able to update this while on the road, but you can find Eddie and me via Eddie’s SPOT (satellite transmitter) at:  http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0R7Kj7qCKvbOECEdmcOx8HVfxYiT6no3v