So I went hiking with guy and dog. It had been intermittently raining buckets – giant buckets, like when firefighting helicopters pick up water from a nearby swamp and release it all at once over a forest fire. Worried that my camera would get soaked, I left it behind.

But I did take my iPhone and managed to document the hike through randomized Hipstamatic photos. 

Weeks of rain left more mud than hiking path – a foot deep in places. Even the dog refused to traverse some of it without encouragement. 

But we finally reached the top of the cliff just as the sun broke through the clouds.

The trip back was brutal – the guy slipped in mud and tweaked his back, and I slipped in mud and twisted my knee. And the dog, well, I thought she was going to demand to be carried the rest of the way, which isn't easy with a 70 pound dog (75 pounds with all the mud she'd acquired). But we made it back. And it was beautiful.