On February 11, 2001, a friend mentioned that we was climbing the Saddle Mountain and I decided to go with him. I had climbed it once before, over 10 years prior to that, and I had barely made it, so I wanted to give it another try now that I felt I was in better shape. It's not a technical climb at all, following a jeep "trail" all the way to the top, with a break halfway at an old cable-car station (supposedly closed years ago because a car fell off the cable). The jeep trail is used to take people up and down to the TV repeater station on the peak. The Saddle Mountain has three peaks, and the one we climbed is the easiest one.
The way up
Nothing interesting, it's just like climbing lots and lots of stairs. Actually, it is interesting to see people jogging by us on the way up. Lots of people towards the beginning, with sandwich bags and bottles of water, just getting some excersise. On weekeds, there are people who haul ice coolers full of oranges and snacks to sell on the roof of the cable-car station.
The peak.
We started climbing around 500m above sea level, and reached the peak at about 1800m. On the top there is a TV repeater station, fenced in. You cannot actually stand on the very summit. But we walked around it to look around. There were a few people up there listening to the radio and eating oranges, probably bought halfway up the mountain. It took us about 4 hours to reach the top.
The way down
This is the hard part, going down. It took us almost 3 hours to get down, and my knees were killing me. It was actually more tiring because I would start running down and then stop, over and over, whereas on the way up I went slowly at an even pace. But after we were done, there was nothing like a bad "Bus Band" on the way home then a barbecue with friends to forget about all the pain.
Back home.