Wild weather wonder

Several times I have been able to start the climb up Medicine Bow Peak around 4:30 to reach the summit by sunrise. Today wasn't one of those times. But being later we saw an amazing sunrise shinning on Sugar loaf mountain.
But let me back up just a bit. My friend and I headed up around 5:15 this morning and as we were driving up the hwy I spotted some moose by the side of the road. They were huge. And then one of them wandered over to a bush and another male poked his head out. The extra I have is a picture taken from the car. The two were pushing at each other but not very aggressively. The 3rd moose just lay down and let them do their thing. That was fabulous. They are such amazing looking animals.

Then we got to the parking lot for the climb. I have been checking the weather regularly because you don't want to be on top of the mountain when a thunderstorm rolls through. So today was supposed to be clear... Well, it wasn't. The top of the range was socked in and the wind was pretty fierce. But we went ahead and climbed. It's really not that far but basically straight up and coming from sea level, I was taking very frequent breaks for catching my breath and water. Still we were the first up besides the one guy jogging up the trail!!!  We watched him come up from below and pass us and disappear into the clouds... Wow!
Anyway, no scary snow fields to cross. We found some cover and had our "fika" protected by the rocks. I carried up a thermos of hot tea and boy was that good. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the top at around 12,000 feet.
Another extra is the rather creepy view of the rocks and then just clouds. There was no indication of the huge drop off right there, The boulder trail doesn't go close to the edge, but it was a very strange experience. 
As we headed down the clouds did begin to lift and we got our first view of the range and lakes below. I must have a hundred photos of these views but they never get old.
The flowers were wonderful. There were meadows of a wide variety of wild flowers and with the recent rains they are still blooming like crazy. I was using my id app to reacquaint myself with all of their names. We also saw pika.. cute little rabbit like rodents who just live at very high altitudes and a marmot.

So a fabulous morning. I came back and had a little rest and now am heading into town for a concert. And the Irish session last night was fun. I even remembered a few tunes. I think I will be ready for a relaxing day tomorrow!! 
I feel so lucky to have this time here.