Granite Mountain
After completely exhausting ourselves at Death Valley for a day, we headed over to an isolated Granite Mountain and spent two spectacular nights there. Throughout our stay, we were completely surrounded by mountains, unique flora, and a lack of showers--it was essentially the antithesis of a typical Florida day where I would spend most of my time looking down at a screen while being surrounded by cement walls.
When we weren't sleeping, we were either observing, hiking, or climbing. I observed many plants, ranging from the single-leaf pine (Pinus monophylla), which happens to be the world's only single leaf pine species, to stone lotuses, which blossom beautiful little flowers while enduring incredibly xeric conditions. I trudged up a mountain for well over an hour with Tori, Rebeca, and Brandon, and somehow mounted a 600 foot sand dune. Both climbs left me out of breath at the top, but the views were unlike anything I have every seen. I felt so accomplished and so at peace with the miles of observable land surrounding me.
The experiences of the past few days have all culminated into such an important, life-changing event--an event that has brought me closer to nature, and to so many great people.
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