Lost in the Supermarket
Thursday, September 7th, 2006another great thing that happened on our trip was that we were able to see the mountain (Mt McKinley) for just about 48 hours, which is really one of the most amazing things you can see. second to seeing an unobstructed view of the mountain, is watching the face of someone who is seeing it for the first time.
on our first day of hiking the sky was partly cloudy, but the clouds were positioned just perfectly to block out any view of the mountain, but i had my suspicions that it was going to come out; the weather just seemed to be going in that direction. i kept asking brenda to point up in the sky to where she thought the top of the mountain was, and then i would point where i thought it was (which was usually about twice as high as she was pointing). i always got the same reaction from her, "no way. its not way up there."
the next morning we woke up to another partly cloudy day, but i could see that within an hour or so, we would have one of the best views of the mountain that ive had. and out it came. and down dropped brenda’s chin. McKinley has the highest vertical rise of any mountain in the world…you can see it rise 18,000 vertical feet. but its not just how it towers over everything else, its that its just so damn massive…more than Everest.
this pic is from our second night camping while the sun was setting. 
hiking with the mountain out is pretty interesting/challenging. its tough keeping your eye on your path long enough to keep from tripping over things, including your feet.
