Sweet photo Gator. Looks like the Ocean is in the sky!

I thought it looked like the hand of God coming down to "touch" someone.

Science teacher in 6th grade got me out climbing at Taylors Falls, Minnesota. Dad used to take me on multi-day ski tours in Canada when it was way below zero (deg F). Parents thought it was cute And I've been hooked since.

Parents don't think where I climb is so cute anymore......

Family vacation to Lassen Nat'l Park. I looked up at the peak and asked my Dad, "Can you climb it?" He said that there was a trail to the top and that "someday" we'd hike it. Fast forward to 1986, when my 1st born was 5 and I told myself that she and I would do what my Dad never got around to doing. (Great Dad, just always planning, rarely doing! LOL)

She and I took 4 and a half hours to do that little hike. She wasn't hooked but I was. Climbed Shasta the next year and have just kept going.

Thanks for the inspiration Dad.

Ps, All of my kids have done the hike. Now I am starting on the grandkids.

emmieuk wrote:This hobby is way expensive tho...but saves me buying more shoes!!

Expensive? Now it's you who must be joking - you can climb barefoot.

Not long ago....It was in jan 2007.
i got this crazy road block in Cochabamba, Bolivia. I had to walk from 2300m to 4500m in two days...so i was in love for the mountains from that day on.
Less then 4 years ago!

sjarelkwint wrote:My first mountain ever ...

That isn't the Belgium I know!

has nice chocolate though so its OK

Now I am thinking of chocolate....is it that nice there as everyone says? I must try some!

mmmmmmmmm now i really am thinking of chocolate

i could eat that whole fountain........i want to be like the fat austrian kid on willy wonka who swims in the chocolate river...yum!!

thats me!!! mmmmmmmmmm imaging how easy climbing would be if there was a chocolate river at the top........mmmmm

ok now i really need chocolate!

The first mountain I have ever hiked was a nice hill situated near the Ontario-Quebec border when I was about nine years old. It is called Mont Chaudron, or Mount Cheminis.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&source=imghp&biw=1024&bih=677&q=mont+chaudron&gbv=2&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
(There's a nice picture of it covered with snow if you scroll down a bit)

About ten years later, my friends and I hiked, scrambled, and bouldered up a small local peak in Southern California. Since then, I have been seriously hooked. I did my first winter climb on San Jacinto Peak and my first desert peak was Sunset Mountain in Anza-Borrego. I have now been climbing all over Southern California and really enjoying it!

A teacher got me interested although I only went caving with him. My first climb was probably in Ogwen, I´ve forgotten which one, in 1972. Totaly green, unprepared, couldn´t tie proper knots etc.

Chocolate is my fuel in the mountains, without it i'm dead Tastes best at the summit.

I started with hiking with my parents since I was 8, in Beskidy, then Tatry. Always been a natural born climbing kid, climbed trees, fences, monuments, so rocks naturally came next.

I grew up in the small mountain community of Wrightwood, Ca. My family relocated to the East Coast when I was very young but, I always kept the memories of the mountains with me. Now, over thirty years later driving as a long haul truck driver, I get to see some very beautiful mountains around the country. I always wondered and dreamed what it would be like to climb to the top of one of those beautiful mountains. At 39 years old, I finally get to live that dream I've had since I was a young kid.