PCT thru-hiker Funnybone stopped by a rock formation I’ve been itching to check out:

The Sierra Buttes are beauts indeed. They’re jagged and isolated from everything around them, propped up without anything but the clear blue sky for a backdrop. Atop the highest point, at an elevation of 8,587 feet, sits a metal and glass fire tower.

I climbed the hundred and seventy-five steps to reach the lookout. It took my breath away—literally and figuratively. I could see more terra firma below me than anywhere I’d ever been yet, except maybe in an airplane or on good old (new) Google Earth. In the distance, I could make out Mount Lassen, Mount Shasta, Mount Diablo, Mount Rose and mounting my knapsack in the expanse below me, a small squirrel. I’d left the pack a few hundred feet below, to save on the stress of having to lug it any farther. I thought it wise until I saw the critter invite a few of his furry friends for a popcorn orgy, courtesy of one Funnybone character.

I took a picture of the Buttes during a road trip earlier this summer.