Penultimate

Minimal hiking and a different summit as well, as a different type of summiting.  Our start was later too and we filled our bellies (a phrase Amy came to loath) with breakfast sandwiches and hit the road to take a gondola ride to the top of Crystal Mountain and see Rainier from the north east vantage.  The gondola ride didn't do anything for Amy's fear of falling but was an easy 15 min ascent that offered great views.  We grabbed some drinks and pretzels at the top and wandered around a bit checking out the ski slopes that we all agreed were quite steep.  Back at the base of the hill the girls all "panned" for minerals and Merrick and I checked out the store before we headed back to the cabin in 95 degree heat.  The plan was for an early pizza dinner in Packwood, but we opted for an air conditioned bar advertising burgers.  We chose wrong, but at least the food was so bad that it was comical and the pool table was open.  We passed around some pull tabs quickly turning 7 dollars into four and then zero while we waited 4 min for our food to arrive...yes four min. That was our initial sign of how bad it would be.  We had access to a pool, but there was snafu and we weren't allowed in so we headed back to our cabin.  Back at the pad we walked up the river a ways with plans of maybe getting in to cool off from the heat, but calf deep wadding was all that was needed in the glacial run off.