A sunrise adventure with friends new and old

I’ve had this post in my drafts for a while, and finally decided to publish it. I just got back from a trip to Europe and I really want to take my time with that blog post, so I hope you can forgive me for posting something a little less timely :)

A couple of weeks ago, I asked my friend, A, if she would be interested in doing a sunrise hike with me sometime soon. And like all good friends, she said yes, and then roped in another friend, M, to come with. M is the kind of person who I felt an immediate connection with, so despite the fact that M and I had only met a couple of times before this, we immediately started scheming, as our hike was just two days before A’s birthday, and we weren’t going to let that go un-celebrated. But more on that later.

Sunday night, I set my alarm for 2:10 Monday morning and hoped for a solid 4.5 hours of sleep. For the record, I’m the kind of person who needs a lot of sleep - in an ideal world, I’d be getting 9 hours a night. But sometimes, the best adventures are worth a little sleep deprivation.

We gathered at A’s house at 3 am, making it to the trailhead around 3:45. We booked it up the 1.9 miles to the lookout. This was my first real hike since I’ve gotten my inhaler, and man, what a difference! I still got out of breath, as, shockingly, having an inhaler didn’t suddenly change how out of shape I am, but I was able to recover much more quickly from getting out of breath and didn’t start wheezing. So that was a welcome development.

We also managed to sneak an entire (small) cake up the mountain, along with some fun beverages, since it was A’s birthday. I think it’s an established fact that all food tastes better at the top of a mountain, and 10 out of 10, highly recommend mountain sunrise cake. Especially if it looks like a narwhal.

Despite starting a little later than we meant, we still made it to the plateau just before sunrise, and we spent a little over an hour hanging out, snacking on narwhal cake, taking photos, and posing with our Rumpls (Plz sponsor me). Despite the entire goal being to see sunrise - which was absolutely glorious - what really captured our attention was a cloud inversion happening to the west of us. It made us feel like we were so separated from the rest of the world, with this thick blanket of cloud between us and reality.

M was commenting about how interesting it is when you go into an activity expecting one thing (sunrise), but the thing that captures your attention and makes the moment so special is something entirely different (like a cloud inversion). And I have to agree, though I might be a little cheesy about it. I went in expecting a challenging hike and a beautiful sunrise, and I got that - but I also got quality time with friends and a much needed reset before heading into the work week.

I would definitely do this again sometime - but can we do it a little further out from Solstice? I’d love to wake up in the 3:00 hour instead…