Having avoided tougher hikes all year due to general gutlessness and late-melting snow, we finally tackled a real challenge in Bandera Mountain Monday, confronting our lack of conditioning and the embarrassment of seeing people twice our age negotiate the same slopes without our pained expressions of agony.

Bandera is one of the big, bald mountains on the left-hand side of I-90 as you near the Pass. It’s easy to get to, but that’s about it. From the first step it’s all uphill. In the parking lot we saw two women in a Subaru strapping babies onto their chests. The image would later come back to haunt us.

Bandera Mountain, accessible via the Ira Spring trail—named for the champion, photographer, advocate, and author of Washington’s hiking experiences—is almost 9 miles round-trip and roughly 3,000 feet of elevation gain. On a clear, sunny day, the exposed mountainside can be punishing, so splurge on sunscreen and water.

By the time we reached the break-off point for the Mason Lake Trail, after several miles of climbing, we were already convinced we had done the lion’s share of the work. We took the right fork towards Bandera and soon realized the real challenge hadn’t started yet. The final mile or so is a brutal scramble at times on all fours up a steep, rocky mountainside. We thought about the Subaru women and their babies crawling over boulders in misery and hoped to God they had opted for the scenic, albeit easier Mason Lake route which is visible from Bandera’s summit.

On the way down, maybe 300 feet from the summit, we met a red-faced, middle-aged man who could barely summon the breath to ask how much further he had to go. We could see on his face the only answer he wanted to hear was, “Almost there.”

A hiker on the way up asking a hiker on the way down how much further to go is a sure sign that the person on the way up is close to having their will broken. They wouldn’t ask if they weren’t already dying.

Like the courteous mountain folk we are, we kindly informed the distressed hiker he faced, “At least another 1,000 feet of hell before the carnivorous marmots come into play.”

He wasn’t in the mood for our sadistic humor and grunted onward. As for the college students and retirees who had no problem making the summit, Bandera Mountain is a worthy 360 degree view with phenomenal outlooks onto many of our notable volcanoes with great views of Mason Lake below.

Besides, any time you can say you climbed a mountain, you go for it. There’s nothing like name dropping a Cascade Peak in casual conversation to make oneself come across as a rugged, outdoorsy Washingtonian, baby or no baby.

Photograph of Alaska Lake courtesy of Alan Cordova from the Seattlest Flickr Pool