Only 2 miles or so...

Yesterday was all sorts of fun. Really. I blistered my toes, scraped up my leg, sunburned my scalp, got attacked by killer mosquitoes, killed the dog (well, almost) and didn't even get to where I was going. But I also went on a GREAT hike. I have been asking everyone in the area to recommend good hikes, trying to learn my way around here and find places I wouldn't know about otherwise. A friend recommended a short, ~2 mile jaunt up to Lake Bloomington that sounded fabulous, so I got geared up for a short hike (Keens without socks and 2 litres of water) and took off.

Ooops.

Turns out that the hike was slightly more challenging than originally described. If I had actually thought about it, and done a bit more checking on my maps, I would have at least realized that there was an intense elevation climb involved (nearly 3000 feet to the top of the ridge). I had to stop quite regularly to catch my breath, some of those climbs felt nearly vertical! I am SO out of shape! Also, it turns out that it isn't about 2 miles to the lake. More like 6. Six miles through an overgrown trail (Ouch! Those branches were whippy!). I only made it four miles, to the top of the ridge. The view was great from the ridge (see above), and you can even kind of see where I started from - in the center of the picture, at the bottom of the valley is a white speck that is the campground I started from.

At that point I was actually still feeling good enough that I could have gone the extra two miles down the other side to get to the lake, but I knew I didn't have enough water with me to keep me and the dog hydrated. He was already dead - we had to take a short side trip to a patch of snow so he could cool off. Poor thing, he is still sleeping it off and creeping around on sore muscles.

So, wisdom and a tired dog prevailed, and we turned around and headed back, with the determination to come back with more water, and lunch, another day. For the most part, down was faster. Except for the parts that were covered in loose rock. And the steep parts. Most of the trail actually. Down was the part of the hike where rocks and dirt worked their way into my sandals (which had been fabulously comfortable till this point) and started forming blisters on my big toes. OUCH! It was also the part where I started slipping. Yikes. Luckily I only actually fell twice (I never fall), and only got scraped up once. Not bad when you think about it.

The most beautiful part of the hike, other than the view from the top, was the part of the trail at the bottom that went along side the river. Beautiful, cool, wet, shady and green. I loved it!

There were three foot bridges going over the river like this one, but the best one of all looked more like this:

HAHAHAHA! Talk about an adventure... the whole day was one unexpected, funny surprise after another. Five hours after we started out, we limped back to the car and wound our way back home to get some cold water and some Ibuprofen. Next time I will be prepared! Hiking shoes, doubled socks, 5 litres of water, bug spray, lunch and an earlier start should make things less unexpected and even more fun!