This was the first time that we’ve been up to Crystal Mountain. It was a bit expensive to ride the gondola up, but worth doing once. I figured it would be easier to hike down the almost six miles than to hike up it, but it was still a nice workout.
It was a hike of firsts. My first slip and fall, but I managed to save the camera and lens, at the expense of my left, elbow bashing into the ground. It still hurts more than a week later (when I’m actually writing this). Our little one went to the bathroom outside in the wild for the fist time – took a bit of coaxing, but her big sister helped her with it. It was also the first time that I’ve gone on a hike without another adult – it was just the girls and I.
All in all, a successful hike. It took a bit longer than we thought it would, it was also a bit hotter, and we got lost for a bit, but survived. Incidentally, the Crystal Mountain Trail changes names when you get down to the lake, at that point, follow the Silver Creek Trail. This last bit wasn’t marked anywhere, but we figured it out by taking an unmarked trail since the Crystal Mountain Trail ended, and the unmarked trail joined with the Silver Creek Trail.
All images were shot using the Canon EOS R5 and the 15-35mm f/2.8 RF lens – edited in Lightroom and Luminar.
