163: THE CHIEF

I love the hike up to the Chief. It consists of 3 peaks - most people do only one, but we spent 7.5 hours doing all three peaks. It was so awesome!

First we started with a peek at Shannon Falls, then off we were to start our real hike. Peak 1 is the most popular and is therefore the best developed, with steps and ladders and chains in place to help people up. We decided to veer off that route and went up Peak 3 instead, which was undeveloped and involved a lot of scrambling up rocks, ducking under fallen trees, etc. It was so fun! And the view at the end was totally worth it.

Our route: Up peak 3, down peak 3, up peak 2, down peak 2, up peak 1, down peak 1. Exhausting, especially when we were going down for our final descent. The steep downhill part was killer, but thankfully the steps were there to help us out.

What we thought was peak 2 but was actually peak 2.5... the cliffs were breathtaking. Good thing I'm not scared of heights.