I went on my very first winter hike this weekend! It was absolutely, positively amazing and I can’t wait to go back. The original plan was to hike Mt. Garfield, but we started late so our leaders decided to bushwack Mt. Scarface and then hike Bald Mountain instead.  I love bushwacking, so I was very, very excited about our change in plans.

Starting our hike – a quick stop to unlayer as we warmed up during the first hour or so. This is the outdoors club at my workplace; they’re having a big winter sports thing all month and I’m so excited to be able to take part in it!

Look at the beautiful landscape! The sky was grey and gorgeous – and believe me, I never thought I would say that – and the trees were so stark and pretty.

Us at the top of Mt. Scarface.  There’s no trail going up there, so we bushwacked and it was so much fun.  Half of winter hiking is putting clothes on and taking them off, which is why we’re all bent over our packs in these pictures.

There was a small bluff by Bald Mountain – gorgeous views of snow-covered mountains!

One of the women in my group likes to fly kites whenever she summits, so she busted this beauty out at the bluff.  It took everyone by surprise but it was a lot of fun!

A final view from the bluff; off to the right is the cursed Cannon Mountain.  Because we drove from Scarface to Bald Mountain, my camera underwent several rapid temperature changes and, predictably, the lens fogged over so I wasn’t able to get pictures from the summit of Bald Mountain (I’m choosing to blame this on the proximity of Cannon.) Figuring out how best to manage the extreme temperatures is all part of the fun!