Well, so the hike gets a little steeper now, It's tough to tell from the pictures, but this was STEEP, the kind of slope where you hike for 5 minutes, and are tired again.  Once we left the trail in the valley, we broke out of the tree line fairly quickly.  Most of this hike was done on steep grassy covered slopes, and rock scree.
 
 

Yikes! Steep

Cheryl taking a break

A view of the valley

Checking out the scenery

Very big valley

A view to the top

    Keep going, more pictures ahead...  actually some of the best are yet to come.