8/25/21—Washington Day 4

Perhaps my favorite day.

Made our way to a popular ski resort and took a gondola ride up to a mountain top restaurant for lunch. 360º picture perfect mountain views. Other things we witnessed include a chipmunk sneaking in and out of the restaurant’s outdoor fridge, a golden retriever nearly dragging his owner down the face of the mountain, and a very small child face planting on a fairly rocky trail. We headed back down on the gondola, grabbed some Dippin’ Dots, and headed out.

We then hit up a grocery store to get some food to cook for dinner. Had to fuel up before a sunset hike.

We cooked dinner in the trailhead parking lot and put some extra layers on before we hit the trail for the best hike of our lives. It was hard not to stop every few meters to take photos, but we had to make it to the top of the mountain while we still had daylight. We were heading to a fire lookout tower, something that was on both of our bucket lists. While laser focused on getting to the fire lookout, I tried to remind myself as often as I could to look out and enjoy the environment that we were completely engulfed in.

Easily the best moment of my life was being on top of that mountain at a fire lookout with my best friend during sunset and blue hour. We basked in the moment for as long as we could. We were the last people there before making the descent in the dark.