Santanoni's

Since it has been dry and the days are nice and long for light, I decided we decided to do the Santanoni's 6/25/16 considering last time it was about a 12 hour day. Last time I did these, we went up tagged Couch, went over to Santanoni and the back to Panther and down the same way we came up but now there was the new to me "Express" way so we tried that. The path was easy to follow marked by a cairn to start the path. As you got nearer the top it became a little muddy but not bad. There were a few slabs to scramble up and then we saw the amazing views. Not to long after we were on the first peak of the day. We sat and ate for a little before heading to "Time Square". After dropping, dropping, dropping...we hit time square and dropped some more. Bye elevation. The bog over to Couch wasn't bad this time around. It wasn't great either but we managed to get across without falling in. That is always a good thing. Then up and over to Couch. It was a bit buggy up there and the sun was starting to beat down. We ate a little more and then headed back to finish the last peak of the day. The climb back up to time square feels longer than 1.5 miles but we did it and took a little rest before the last bit. Panther was close and didn't take long to hit it. The mud over was manageable. The slab going up right before Panther was interesting to me with my slippery boots. Panther got a new sign! We sat down and enjoyed a rest and moved to the sun area to avoid the bugs. They were the worst they were all day. We relaxed and took in the view. It was time to go. We packed up and off we went for the last leg back to our car. I remembered the way I took up long ago...pieces of it were coming back to me. Thankfully it was dryer! We came to a water area and put our hands and tried to get some of the grime off of us and cool of. It was very COOLING!!! Brrrr. But felt great. Matthew dunked his head it. No thank you! Then down and back to the car. Was a fun day out in the mountains. We were tired and dirty but it sure felt good!