Oh, our aching leg muscles!

We read the weather reports carefully for over a week hoping for a couple of cool days. The plan was to climb a mountain near I-8 to the crash site of a WW II B-17 bomber. Finally, yesterday was perfect...cloudy...comfortably cool...no wind. We could take the quads to the closest point of the hiking trail. Those who drive a car have to park a ridge or two from where we could park. (And our point was a bit of a challenge to two of the quads. The folks had never gone up such a steep, sandy and rocky hill. They have now!)

Norman and I took the following two pictures from just where we were standing. Here I am...fresh and ready to climb to the top! This is looking back down the hill...already we can't see our quads.

Here are Norman, Kathy, Marge' and Jerry just above me. The four of them really aren't very far apart, just higher than each other. The point we're aiming to climb to is to the left of the peak above Norman. It's a fairly easy climb at this point although already steep. The trail is marked with piled stones along the way. 

We were amazed at the amount of wreckage strewn along the ravine. In all the plane and chopper wrecks we've seen, there is very little to see except for small pieces. The folks at the Marine base usually pick up all the large pieces. We believe the large pieces from this one weren't worth the time and expense to pick up.

This is just a tiny bit of what was up there to take a look at. The engines (turbines?) were in several areas. That's the only wheel we saw near Norman. I said, "photo op"...Kathy said, "rest time"...lol.

The crosses mark the spot where the bodies of the four men on board were found...Not the most glamorous shot of Kathy, but we were literally climbing like monkeys up the hill by the time we had reached this point.

Pretty close to the top here...maybe 200 feet by how the crow flies. By now we were each taking different routes, unable to always find the piled rocks marking the trail. We had passed the point where the advice had been to "take a rock climbing class before attempting the top". We went for "on the job" training...LOL.

Within 100 feet (as the crow flies)  four of us had sat down to rest for the umpteenth time, and we found it almost impossible to get up...exhausted...But Norman...ah, my man...he's the only one to have fallen down going up the hill (thank goodness for the bottled water at his back...it softened his fall)...the only one to send a good-sized rock crashing down on one of us (fortunately it hit her shin and not her head)...and the only one who made it to the top...sign the geocache (a 5/5)...reattach the Marine Corp flag, which was about to fly off...and have his lunch with a magnificent 360 degree view of the area!

There were two flags at the top...a US flag and the Marine flag. They were flying back to back, not quite appropriate, but who cares. Those Marines who made the top, should be proud of what they did. It wasn't easy...

The hike down was actually more difficult. We kept ourselves at least ten feet apart...we were slipping and sliding and falling...sending rocks down hill. We each reached the bottom with at least one bruise, scrape or cut from the rocks.

My hiking boots were the best. They really gripped the rocks going up and down. We did use our walking sticks all of the time. They were a must have. We needed to carry more water and maybe a few more snacks. We learned a lot about climbing on rock falls.

According to the GPS we only climbed 7/10 of a mile from 800 feet to over 2000 feet, but it might as well have been 50 miles for as tired as we were, when we had finished.

Do we regret making the climb?

HECK NO!

Do some of us regret not going for the top?

YOU BET!

Will we do it again?

NOT THIS YEAR!...LOL