Conquering a Mountain

Following Saint-Jean-de-Luz, we went back to Chambéry for two days.  As all of you know, it was getting very close to the time when I would have to say good-bye to Chambéry and to my favorite mountain.  I had set a goal for myself to hike to the top of my mountain before I left, so Reed and I decided that Saturday was the day.
First, I'll remind you all what my favorite mountain looks like with a series of pictures that I have taken over the semester:

We started out around noon on that day.  I wasn't exactly sure where the trail started so the plan was to walk to the mountain until we found something path-like.  It took an hour to get to the base of the trail.  We walked out a ways and then through a neighborhood before we could find a sign.  The trail was fairly steep, even at the beginning.  Unfortunately, my camera was nearly out of batteries and I wanted to save it for when we were at the top.
The trails were marked very poorly.  A lot of times, when there was a fork in the road, there wasn't any sign at all.  It seemed like we went up quickly, and, in no time at all it seemed, we found ourselves high above the city.  Far as it seemed we'd come and high as it seemed we were, we still had a long, long way to go.  You can see a little peak of the city far below in this picture:

The trails led us along some pretty nature scenery.

We walked up further and further through a cow pasture.  I don't think the cows fully appreciated their wonderful view of the valley below.  After perhaps another hour or so, we had a very good view of the cross from the trail.  (Even though it's hardly visible in the picture below, we could see it very well from where we were).

As you can see, we still had a very long way to go.  My legs were already tired and we were only about 2 hours into the hike.  From here, we went into pretty dense forestry and the path got a lot narrower and rocky.  We hardly ran into any people the whole time, but we did end up figuring out the trail markings eventually.  Near the top the path gets a little scarier, more on the edge of the mountain but with a rope to hold onto the whole time.  There were also some parts that were ladders instead of just a path or stairs.  I was seriously lagging behind and Reed kept trying to encourage me forward.  Finally, about five and a half hours after leaving from the dorm, we reached the top of the mountain.  I was completely exhausted.
When you look at this picture, keep in mind how big the cross looks from far away and how big I look next to it.

The views were beautiful.

The really awesome part was that airplanes and gliders were flying around at equal level with us, some below us even, and they were really close.
After spending some time up there enjoying the view, we headed back down.  I was worried that we wouldn't find our way back to the right town.  Tired as we were, we did make it back home at about 10pm.  I was completely exhausted.  My leg muscles were sore for the next 3 days or so, but I was proud of myself for having persevered and gotten through the top.