Flattop Mountain (a.k.a. My Favorite Part of Alaska So Far)

To a true mountain climber, Flattop would perhaps be small potatoes.

But to us?

It was a behemoth. It was exhilarating and slightly terrifying (at least when I saw mom and had heart palpitations thinking she was going to plunge down onto the rocks below...). 

It started off really easy with a well-defined trail, luring you into a false sense of security. The last bit before reaching the mountaintop, though, was actually pretty dangerous and death-defying and all of that. Actually, I'm only speaking for myself here. But still!

We kept thinking of you the whole time, Pete. You would've loved it.

Aponi met up with us and was there at the lookout at the base of Flattop. She and Wendy headed back, though, because Aponi had to work and couldn't climb with the rest of us.

All from the lookout before climbing Flattop (and yes, I took a lot of pictures and had trouble weeding them out):

That's Flattop in the distance. (It's the one with the flat top.)

Sleeping Lady. Do you see her?

Saskia came, too. He is a mountain cur, after all.

Alright.

Now to get to the climb.

Really, the star of this show is Mom. Nearly 70 years old, she climbed like a little mountain goat. (Yes, Pete, like a little Nanny-Goat).

I don't have words to go with the rest of this post because I think the pictures speak for themselves pretty well.

I didn't take pictures of the hard parts of the climb. To be frank, taking pictures simply didn't cross my mind...

The light on the ocean far below was breathtaking. Pictures don't do it justice.

The buildings you can barely see? That's Anchorage.

That's Jacy scrabbling her way up a loose-rock zone just ahead of me.

Victory!

From the top.

Going down (this was the part where we sat to give ourselves more surface area to fall on and I screamed internally every time Mom's shoe knocked down loose stones).

My favorite picture of the whole trip so far. Mopsy Mountain Goat running down the mountain.

At the bottom, we realized that climbing Flattop took a little more grit than we'd expected.

Driving around Anchorage a couple of days later, it seemed like Flattop popped out at me from the landscape every time I turned around. 

It was pretty spectacular.

The End.