We met a trio of college age girls at the Z Bar in Midtown Reno a few weeks ago, and after much imbibition we offered to take them to the top of Mt Rose (a 10,785 foot mountain visible from Reno, 11 miles round trip starting at 8,900 feet, so a lot like Mt San Jacinto). I never expected to hear from them again, but they were game and wanted to go.
Once they agreed to go it became kind of important to me because while two of the girls were from Michigan, one was a Reno native and had looked up at Mt Rose her entire life. I wanted her to finally stand on top.
So we all met at the trailhead at 7:30 Saturday.
It was a very long day because we took a long lunch break at the Wilderness sign and also at the top. We knew thunderstorms were forecast for the afternoon, but I wasn’t concerned since I assumed we’d be off the mountain by noon. In fact, we watched the storm move in from the south as we stood on the summit, and hurried back down in the rain and thunder.
This is a photo of the girls on the summit that shows the storm coming in from behind them (also Lake Tahoe). It’s like the “This is fine” meme.
The Michigan girls seemed to understand the danger, but they were still pretty nonchalant about it. Ingrid and I were very nervous. It was actually maybe a quarter hour after this photo was taken when we finally shooed everyone off the summit. It soon started raining and we all got soaked, but luckily it was still warm. Thunder crackled overhead constantly but the further away from the summit we got the more we could tell it was behind us (until near the end of the hike, when it seemed to have caught up with us, but we were back below the treeline and much less concerned).
There were still people making their way to the top when we hurried down. Dunno what they were thinking.
Once we were back down to the meadow the rain slacked off and the thunder and lightening seemed to be behind us. We got back to the parking lot at 3:30, which was kind of nuts. But everyone had a good time and it sounds like they want to do more of this. Happily, we got the toughest hike out of the way first.