Mount Baker On A November Day - Part 2

The trail up Mount Baker, which had begun as such easy walking, had turned more rocky and more steep. The small dogs found it great fun to run and play on the rocky ledges, but Seamus and I were slowing down a little more with each climb:

But always the bare trees afforded us spectacular views off into the valley below and the blue sky overhead. It felt good to be alive:

Seamus was slowing down and stopped at this ledge as if to say, "Really? How am I supposed to get up there?":

The three smaller dogs walked to the edge as if to encourage him. And, in the end, Seamus maneuvered the ledge with a bit of help from me. I did also, though my leg braces made climbing a bit awkward:

We'd reached a height which made it increasingly easy to see through the trees to the valley below:

We kept climbing. There were more rock ledges:

And the winds suddenly picked up, blowing hard enough that I wondered if we were in for a major windstorm. Little Daphne and Clover braced themselves against the wind and a dead tree crashed down right behind us, startling us all:

But we stayed on the trail and kept climbing upward:

It was a wonderful day in a beautiful place:

I could tell that we were nearing the summit:

There were some steep ledges to negotiate as we got closer to the peak, some of them a little worrisome because my braces made me clumsy and there were steep drop offs below:

But we continued to climb. Seamus appeared apprehensive as well, and stayed right by my side most of the time. The little dogs, as you can see, waited for us at the top. We were almost to the summit and I'll post photos of that in Part 3, tomorrow: