After the hike we had the extreme pleasure of visiting Finley’s kindergarten class to attend her birthday presentation – her sixth birthday was yesterday, May 11, 2015. Happy Birthday Fin!
But the hike itself can only get mixed reviews.
On the one hand, we got to see an impressive waterfall close up:
And from different angles:
The good news about the hike is that we did get to do some very challenging sections, as for instance climbing up the side of the falls:
Ultimately, though, we arrived at a bit of an impasse. We could see something faintly resembling a trail on a spine that appeared to lead to the summit of Mount Teneriffe, perhaps 2,000 feet above us. Very rocky and steep but it did look like something we could ascend.
However, descending, given the time constraint (we did NOT want to miss Fin’s presentation) seemed a bit iffy. We decided to go back down and try to figure out a way down from the summit for a future hike.
More looking at the map and GPS (which is newly arrived and not easy to figure out) led us to believe that we definitely could have summited along that spiny unmaintained trail, and that there is an alternative way down.
Tomorrow, 5/13, Derek is going to investigate a trail we sampled on the way down to see if it does in fact lead to Teneriffe’s summit. If it does, we are in business and will re-trace our path one of these days, but next time to the summit.
In the meantime, the hike had its very nice magical moments:
And this:
Much of this trail looks like that. It’s a fun trail, and we will be back.
And if Derek makes it to the summit tomorrow, look for a photo from up there, a great 360 view for miles around.
Any day that is capped off with a visit to Fin’s class is a memorable day indeed.