Today we walked through temperatures warm enough to start to melt the snow and give it a consistency of mashed potatoes. This made for slow going at times, especially on the way up. We started at 11:00 am under cloudy skies, walked the extra 1.2 miles to the trailhead from the locked gate, ascended up into the clouds themselves for some rather dreary walking, and then came out on top of some of them when we reached the summit of Garfield. This was our tenth peak of the winter and the 12.4 miles is the longest distance we have covered so far. It is fair to say that we were happy to be back at the car at 6:30 pm. Oh, and in case you were wondering why Atticus doesn't have his boots on...when the trail is wet and heavy it doesn't stick to his paws like soft powder does. And while it was windy at the summit he was quite comfortable. I actually had to call him back from the edge a couple of times as he crept forward for his views. The slide show for this hike can be found here. (For those of you who are trying to figure out the songs and the performers of the this and the last four slide shows, I've given you an easy one to make up for the Waumbek and Jackson slide shows.)