Tanima - this day was amazing. A 4am start from the Y, but I fortunately only had to meet up with the group at 4:45 at Wild Basin. We travelled up the trail 6.2 miles to Thunder Lake fairly quickly, and then the real fun began.

After breakfast at Thunder Lake,  we headed further west towards Lake of Many Winds and Boulder Grand Pass. Chiming Bells were blooming everywhere along the way.

The wind was incredibly strong all morning, but it created some beautiful early cloud formations. Fortunately, the storm clouds of the last few days were not forming early.

I broke the streak of finding dwarf columbines on this hike, but there were plenty of pale white columbine scattered throughout the rock fields.

Lake of Many Winds is already pretty high up to the pass. When you looked back, it appeared to be perched on the edge of nothing. And, yes, it lived up to its name.

From Lake of Many Winds, we looked up to Boulder Grand Pass, the steepest part of the ascent. The path goes just to the right of the high snow field, where you can choose a rock climb or some nice, loose scree.

Smiling at the top of Boulder Grand Pass, but bracing against the gale force wind. We all wore helmets on this section just in case a rock might be dislodged by another hiker.

Our happy group at the summit of Tanima with Longs Peak in the distance: Dana, Scott, John, Chris, me, Glen and Carl.

The view across to Longs Peak was incredible. There was another Y hike over there today, so we had the binoculars out and could see the little bodies walking along the narrows and making their way up homestretch.