Ben Lomond Peak

We backpacked this weekend with our friends the Taylors!  DeAnn was our guide as she is the only who had even been up there.  We left late Friday night after work, and hiked about 6.7 miles in to where we were camping.

Justin and I in front of Ben Lomond Peak Friday night

It started getting really dark as we were getting close to where we would set up camp, but we made it all the way there before getting our headlamps out.

That's my awesome backpacking husband!  

Once we set up camp, we used our awesome new backpacking stove and heated some water for our Mountain house Dinners.  We had Chicken and rice.  I wasn't too excited about it, but of coarse when you are backpacking, everything tastes amazing because you are so starving!  It was great!

Justin's shot of the rising moon

Our campsite the next morning

There is Ben Lomond Peak in the background.  

The view of the valley from our campsite.  Imagine it at night all lit up!  It was really cool, but I didn't get a picture of it at night.   The next morning we ate breakfast, packed up camp, and left our packs there so that we didn't have to carry them to the summit.  It was only about 1.5 miles to the top, but steadily upwards.  The views of the surrounding mountains and valleys were so breathtaking the whole hike!  

It was so windy on top!  There is supposed to be a registry book, but there wasn't one in there, so we just wrote our names on some loose papers in the metal stand.  It was so cool on top!  9712 ft elevation.

Of coarse we had to take a Chaco picture, although we didn't wear them much this trip... And as usual I had to take a million pictures of the mountain flowers.  I was surprised there were so many in bloom, as it has seemed to be a dry year.  They were beautiful!

                                                                                               

     

And then off to Denny's afterwards.  Thanks Taylors for always being up for an adventure with us, and for suggesting Ben Lomond!  It was awesome :)