Mount Cardigan, 17 May 2003

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Cee and Carl at the trailhead, looking at the map. We ascended by the Vistamont trail to Mount Gilman.

It's a very late spring. Red and white trillium are just now starting to sprout and bloom.

Carl and Cee walking along ...

More trillium

Carl digs this tree with funky shelf fungus all over it.

More trillium, as well as the yellow flowers that I don't know the name of.

Cee and Carl had to head back to the car at this point, they very graciously allowed me to go on to the summit and ridge trail.

View of Mount Cardigan from the summit of Mount Gilman.

Me, at Rimrock, on the ridge from Gilman to Cardigan.

Me, at Cardigan's South Peak, looking up at the summit.

Random shots at the ranger's cabin, at the base of Cardigan's bald summit.

This is the imaginary torii. (Ask me about it sometime.)

Cardigan's summit is a surreal moonscape of twisted granite.

Fire tower at the Cardigan summit. Too many humans, though.

Lots of nineteenth century graffiti at the summit, chiseled into the rock. Obviously, people took a lot of time over this sort of thing, and penmanship was a much more important part of life than it is now!

Geodetic survey marker at the tip top, for no particular reason.

I didn't stick around the summit for very long, there were too many people and I valued my privacy. All these people are in the lee of the fire tower, it's nice weather but very windy.

More engraved graffiti, it's all over the place.

Views of the Cardigan summit from Firescrew, descending the Manning trail.

Random nice views from the shoulder of Firescrew. I was trying to avoid people on the way down, sometimes speeding up to get ahead of them, sometimes stopping to let them pass.

There's still snow in the shadowed crevices. It's melting fast, though, and the tiny trickling sound of flowing water is all around.

I call this rock the Marble Frog. Yes, it is a solid chunk of marble, white with red highlights, and it looks like a frog to me.

One last look at the Cardigan summit from the shoulder of Firescrew.

And one last trillium, just to make the day complete!