Unnamed Mountain  

A slow creep across charred shrubs and  tactically gripping rock. 

A groggy car ride - not too bad considering how much the dirt road could have been. Still - waking up (a very liberal use of the sense) earlier than your week-working self planned on a Saturday muffles one's enthusiasm somewhat. Not hard going to be fair - as with most hiking the key is to just get on with it and let your mind wanderr down different and comparitively easier paths than your legs. The first ascent was pockmarked with sweet little viewpoints from which the ascent on a scabrous slab of sloping rock - unmarked by any beacon. The first mountain (if it can be called that) had muzzled foliage, trees hulled and used up like spent cigarettes - but a stump remaining.  After a windy half-stumble down on the wrong side and a prodigous attempt at seduction from the river to wash away my grime upwards we go.         

False peaks are horrible things - like having the bottom of your ice cream cone cut off - you wish the end was there - you can see it - but it just... isn't. The base had been burnt -  burnt too early my uncultivated thoughts remark.Where grass and shrubs would blend against one another there is just a texterous black that jutts into paths forming barely walkable alleys. The transition from the harsh pokes and prods of stubborn, charred fingers to rock that grips my feet like a strong hand of friendship is delectable.  Feet horizontal on the steepest bits the view is calming - almost empty. Enough clouds for any pareidoliac and enough of a trek for lunch to be particularly rewarding.