Lion's Head Mountain

- cont'd from the last post -

After lunch we went another half hour on the bus and ended up at the starting point of Lion's Head Mountain.  Apparently there's a bunch of trails you can go on...and apparently we were going on the crazy one...because that's what it ended up being: crazy.  It was literally uphill for a good hour and a half with hardly any flat spots. I wasn't quite prepared for such an epic journey but went with the flow.  It ended up being beautiful and good exercise.  It was a super foggy day, and the higher and higher we got the more thick the fog got.

Starting point.

At this point I had no clue what I was really getting into. 

No one had climbed it before so they didn't really either. 

Gold Buddha in the forest.

There were lots of little things to see on the ascent.

If you yelled out into the open mountain it would echo back clearly.

Parts of the trail went under the mountain shelves above.

As you can and will see, the fog got crazier and crazier.

I love this picture.

Cool building along the road in the fog.

At this point I had steam-rolled ahead of everybody a good ten/fifteen minutes.

Now, I'm no athlete, but when walking uphill I tend to go faster just to get it over with, with minimum breaks.  I get in the zone and go go go!

I love the layers and depth that fog brings and creates.

At the top of the mountain there was a giant pavilion and area with picnic tables and such.

The view from this height would be phenomenal on a sunny day, but it was still awesome.

At this point we only had one casualty.

One of the girls with us returned back to the starting point.

Beyond that gate in the background was another intense adventure I wasn't prepared for...

STAIRS!

First we went down a THOUSAND+ stairs, with each step adding to the anxiousness that it would have to be climbed up on the way back.  But it was awesome being in the middle of the forest just walking down into the foggy abyss.

I loved this rock wall.

Don't know what this says but it was cool.

Well we fiiiinally reached the bottom of the stairs and it ended up being a gorgeous area with a giant temple on the edge of a cliff.  It really was breathtaking.

Temple artistry.

We had some more casualties on the way down the stairs...

These are the ones who made it the whole way!

They had the coolest waterfall with fake birds all over.

It was amazing.

I wasn't exactly looking forward to climbing the stairs but knew it was inevitable...

But I finally made it to the top!...

After about a half-hour straight of climbing stairs nonstop.

It was intense, but not that bad.

And it was worth it for views like this.

The walk back down was pretty easy.  I steam-rolled ahead of everyone a good 15/20 minutes and kept my momentum just going down hill nonstop...and right back home to sleep a good nights sleep.