I've learned that everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it!

Let me just tell everyone that climbing a mountain rated "strenuous hiking" is exhausting...but amazingly rewarding! We got on a bus late last night and drove to a camping ground near Mt. Warning. We arrived and piled into cabins where we slept for a total of four hours. In order to see the sunrise while hiking the mountain we had to wake up at 3:30am to start our journey. The crazy part about hiking this mountain was that the hike to the trails (at the bottom of the mountain) was the worst part! We had to hike 5km from our cabins to the trails...all up hill, on a concrete road. Doesn't sound to bad in writing...but let me tell you that there wasn't one person who wasn't in pain and complaining about their calves. Never the less, we continued and made it to the trails eventually. By this point we had split into two groups, my group had about nine people in it in the beginning.


Only traveling by the light of our flashlights we started the 9km hike up Mt. Warning! The highest vantage point in NSW! Along the way we saw some amazing creatures that couldn't be captured in a picture. My favorite were the glow in the dark worms and other various illuminated bugs. As soon as we turned off our flashlights there was a glow from the rocky walls around us of little illuminated bugs. The trails were narrow, rocky, and very wet but we stuck together and made sure no one got hurt. Our group was encouraging and a team but unfortunately two of our group members had to turn back. The trails were getting harder and the lack of light made each step more dangerous. Because we could only see by the light of our flashlights we had a little adventure off the path. At one point we though we were following the path and had to climb over a huge slick boulder (in the middle of a waterfall) to continue on the path...we were wrong. The path didn't proceed on the other side and we had to turn back and get back on the trail. Most people fell but no one was hurt and we all laughed it off once we made it back to the trail. Soon we had been hiking for hours and the sun was peaking over the mountains around us. We stopped at an overlook to see an amazing view of the sunrise. Mt. Warning is the first place in Australia to see the sunrise...and it was breathtaking!



Our first view of the sunrise!

 




The girls at sunrise :)

 




One of my favorite pictures of the sunrise :)

 

Continuing on our hike we were all getting tired and our muscles were starting to give out but we were so close and couldn't give up now. When we turned the corner we could see the last stretch of our trip was to climb up a vertical rock wall using a chain rope to help us keep our footing. This was my favorite part! It was a pretty far climb to the top of the peak but my group made it and we couldn't have been more proud of ourselves! The view was phenomenal! We spent about an hour up top before we headed back down the mountain which took us about three hours to climb.


This was the top of the mountain where we had to climb up the chain! My favorite part :)

 



We made it to the top...ahhh the view is indescribable

 



Love this picture :)

 




The group I made it to the top with!

 
The hike down was a little easier however, worked completely different muscles. Along the way we stopped and took a lot of pictures of the beautiful rainforest and mountain ranges. Did I mention their are leaches in the rainforest?...it was nasty and we check each other frequently and caught them all early on...I even had one in my shoe when we got down the mountain. As we were hiking back we saw a lot of wildlife that we couldn't capture in pictures and to be quite honest the pictures wouldn't have done the true beauty justice. There is no picture that can capture the feeling you get when you get to witness some of these outstanding views, no picture that can capture the emotions that go through your body once you complete a challenging task that you gave your all and no picture that can capture the beauty of the sounds that surround you in a rainforest. I am beyond proud of myself and my group for showing that mountain who is boss!



The leach that was in my shoe...not cool

 


Part of the trail we had to hike...this was an easy portion but pretty

 



The detour we took on our way up when it was dark, you can see the big rock...remember it is slippery and has running water over it






Gorgeous trees!

 


A really cool elbow tree that we saw :) It was a nice resting bench!








Our group on the hike back down the mountain

 



 


Our group resting in the middle of the road...we were almost back to the cabins!



 Its not the mountain we conquered, but ourselves!