Sunrise over the cloud forest

Last night fore Jared's birthday a group of us headed up the trail to the continental divide (My third time up there). Its a gnarly almost completely uphill hike in the daytime, and in the middle of the night with only headlamps to guide us it was quite the trek. Another one of the stray dogs joined us and decided to make the entire journey up. Half the group called him Nathaniel and the other group called him Cheeto-either way he did an excellent job of running up and down our line of hikers, either tripping us or scaring the crap out of us by suddenly leaping out of the dark. But he was so cute and genuinely excited about being part of our pack that I really couldnt be annoyed by him. By the time we reached the peak, and had sneaked past the house of the T.V. towers-guy, I was drenched in sweat and completely exhausted. We set up a little sleeping circle and talked for a few hours. Cheeto-Nathaniel slept right along side. In the morning I woke up to Nick setting up his camera to capture the sunrise and was lucky enough to be awake and looking out over the forest-covered mountains as it made its way into the sky. It was indescribably beautiful. We were all cold and wet from the morning mists but I felt amazing. We headed back down the mountain around 6 am and were back in time for breakfast and class. The clouds today are low over the hills around the station, and Erick says that it means rain could finally be on the way. I can't wait for the change of weather and the rainy season to start. Hope everyone is doing well. Pura Vida