The reason lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place is that the same place isn't there the second time.

After waking up, I continued along the trail and occasionally thought it was strange to be going downhill the whole time to get to the peak, but figured it was something like the Needles Lookout trail where there was a few thousand feet of drop before the trail climbed back up the mountain to the tower. It wasn't until I got to the next trail sign that I realized my mistake. The sign pointed out that the trail I thought I was on was 2.2 miles back the way I came; and yeah, it was straight up. Nothing to do but head back. Once I got to the trail head again, I realized how I missed the trail in the dark and then set off in the right direction, grumbling at the lost time. I even soon came across the meadow for which I had been searching the evening before. At the next trail head I decided to stash some of the heavy stuff (tent, bear canister, stove, etc.) behind some rocks to make the load lighter for the hike to the summit, another 2 miles away with 1900 feet of elevation gain.

As I was climbing up, I was getting my first exposure to snow in countless years. Even though hiking was comfortable in shorts and a thin shirt and even sleeping just required to silk long underwear to stay comfortable, the snow still found ways to survive on the mountain side in a bunch of different mounds scattered all over. And no, even though none of it was yellow, I was not tempted to eat the snow. When I was about 600 feet in elevation from the top a storm seemed to be coming in, so I sought shelter in a small rock outcropping. Until I fell asleep (after leaving my trekking poles and external framed pack outside of course), it was cool to watch the lightning dance around the valley in the distance. When I woke up a hour or so later there was still some thunder, which I assumed to be of the storm that passed in the distance. I kept hearing it as I continued my climb and thought it was just canyon echoes. Not until I got to the summit did I realize what was happening. I scrambled over the rock and got my first view of the other side of the mountain and subsequent valley. What I was hearing wasn't the storm that already went by, it was another storm that was coming in on the heels of the first one. I had just enough time to put the camera on auto-trigger and just hold down the release while spinning around. I got some decent panorama pictures put together (check out the slide show below) and you can really see the coverage of the storm system. I then saw lightning that seemingly traveled up to a cloud that was either just about level of just below me. Just at that point I smelled what seemed to be some distinctive ozone. Being about 1000 feet above the tree line in that weather is not fun. I have never run so fast down a mountain in my life and am surprised I didn't wipe out on some of the snow patches. If I checked the barometer beforee starting up again I might have figured it out, but I didn't even think about it after waking up and assuming the system had already passed. The storm never reached my side of the mountain and about 30 minutes later the sky seemed to be a crisp blue. I really would have loved to take in more of the view and will hope to get another crack at it (no pun intended) sometime.

After picking my stuff back into the pack, I headed back towards Panther Gap. After the day activities, I was almost considering heading back to the trail head and forgoing the next leg, but decided to keep going. I wanted to get to Emerald Lake and headed towards Pear Lake via The Hump trial, but after already walking 13 miles that day which had a 4900 elevation gain and and 3900 foot loss, I was exhausted and petered out about a mile before getting to Heather Lake just as darkness was setting in. that was one of the most tough days I've ever had. I knew I should have packed the Ibuprofen.