Thursday, April 21, 2011

Oysters, Lizards, and a blogger

Beginning of hike at Chuckanut Drive
I had a hard time thinking of a title for this Senior Trailblazer trip. We met at the Senior Center and discussed our options: it was already raining and the skies looked terrible over Stewart Mountain, our scheduled hike for the day. We decided to flip this week's hike with next week's, so fourteen of us headed to Chuckanut Drive to start what was to be our nine-mile (round trip) hike to Oyster Dome and back.
We also had a new hiker with us today: Kimberly from just me - alive, a blogging friend who barely qualifies to hike with us (being a grandmother and in her mid-fifties, we let her get away with it). She had been reading my blog and decided to head to Bellingham from her home twenty miles south, and visit the Trailblazers! She walked in and introduced herself. If you visit her blog (which I linked), she compares what her medical numbers were before she decided to get in shape, and what they are now. It's very inspiring.
She was worried about keeping up. It was not a problem, as she is running half-marathons and is very strong. Not to mention a very fun person and I hope she comes back! This picture was taken with the only view we had all day, as the clouds thickened and made it feel quite cold, if you can call 37 degrees (2.7 C) cold (I can). Once the rain and snow hit (see previous picture), we decided not to make the final push to Oyster Dome but instead take the trail over to Lizard Lake. This would add about a mile to our hike, but we had already accomplished most of the uphill, so off we went, crunching snow underfoot and big drops of cold rain and snow falling onto our heads and down our backs.
As you can see from these skunk cabbage sprouting up through the snow on our way to Lizard Lake, even they are emerging slowly during this cold spring. It's a full month today since the first day of spring, and they should be much farther along. We finally got to Lizard Lake and had a very cold lunch break, taking maybe twenty minutes before heading back onto the trail. Everyone was cold and a bit miserable. We took the loop over to Samish Overlook before heading back down to the cars, and we saw this from the overlook:
You are looking out from Samish Bay towards the Olympic Mountains, and Samish Island is the land mass in the foreground. The Trailblazers commented that they have never seen the tide this low, making it look like you could walk right over to the island. They called it a "minus tide." After looking up the definition, it seems to be a low tide that is actually lower than sea level, which happens occasionally but not very often. By the time we left the overlook and started back on the final push to our cars, I realized that we had covered a fair distance: almost eight miles to be exact, and we still had two miles to go.

After ten full miles and more than 2,300 elevation up and down, I feel quite justified in self-medicating with a wonderful glass of wine. After we started our final push to the cars, the sun had the audacity to come out and shine on us! People were starting up the trail as we headed down, and now as I sit at my computer I'm looking out at skies filled with more sunshine than clouds. I feel pretty darn satisfied, though, and I've met my first blogging buddy, Kimberly! It was a great day.
:-)

21 comments:

  1. How fun...Hi Kimberly! Glad you're finally getting some much needed sunshine! Ten miles...that's fantastic.

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  2. What a neat thing to meet another blogger and have a day with each other!

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  3. Aas always , a very good hike! I can feel the wetness. I enjoyed all the exercise!
    I have a couple of bloggers who are former colleagues(this could be spelled incorrectly) and it's always fun to talk blogs. I'm going to meet another blogger this summer and she doesn't know it so it will be a big surprise!

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  4. This is so neat. I love that one of your blogger friends decided to try the hike with you. How fun! Here's to hiking and blogging...Keep at it.

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  5. snickering at the play of the sunshine...ugh...why not just a bit earlier...smiles.

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  6. Great day you had..how wonderful to meet blogger friends! For you especially one that hikes! 37 is cold it wasn't much warmer than that here today..a month into spring and it doesn't feel like it yet.
    Thanks for sharing your hike:)

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  7. Very cool. I hope Kimberly wasn't too miserable in the cold. You might have to convince her to come back when the weather's nicer.

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  8. Your hike today sounds wet. Great that you met a blogging friend!

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  9. What a great surprise to have a fellow blogger drop in for a hike.

    I was thinking about you and your group earlier this afternoon as I watched the rain/snow/sleet mix fall on my patio. Our mountains have lots of fresh snow. Sounds like your area got some too.

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  10. I really admire your stamina to do these hikes. And yes, you deserve that bit of self-medication. You deserve it. How fun to meet a fellow blogger.

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  11. 37ยบ sounds unbearably hot to me!!!

    but that's probably because I think in Celsius :p

    Seems like Spring sure is holding out on you guys this year. Have you thought of telling her to hurry up already?

    It's wonderful that a fellow blogger decided to join you guys! What a great way to meet her!

    And that low tide picture... wow!

    thanks again for taking us along your hikes! :o)

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  12. Sounds like an interesting hike...cold, miserable, but interesting. lol Never heard of a minus tide.

    For the record, our spring is warmer than usual. Ugh. That means summer will more than likely be ugly.

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  13. That's a great way to have an Earth Day celebration. I like those names that are so unique--Chuckanut Drive, Oyster Dome, Lizard Lake. The origin of the name of the last one is puzzling. The name Samish Island reminded me that we ran across villages in Norway where they also have natives called Sami People. It was interesting to read online that they are also found in Greenland and Washington State.

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  14. You're a hardy bunch! And 37 degrees is cold. How great to meet another blogger, too.

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  15. I read Kimberly
    she's lovely
    how great that you got to meet each other

    is that snow I see behind you!!

    I love the name Chuckanut

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  16. How exciting! Thanks for introducing her. It looks positively dreary. I don't blame you a bit for relaxing with a glass of wine; I'd have definitely felt like treating myself to a little goody after 10 miles.
    That picture of the minus tide is eerily beautiful. Perfect view for a murder of some such grisly business.

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  17. Great pictures! Such a fun day, I really enjoyed the hike and getting know you and the others in the group. It was a bit cold at lunch I agree! Hopefully, I will become a regular with this bunch. P.S. The granparents day at my granddaughters school was wonderful today as well!

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  18. Beautiful post. I like your new hiking buddy.

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  19. You have so many beautiful places to choose from for your hikes. If I could hike here, I would only have about two – one up Kennesaw Mountain, and one down the other way. Here it gets warm quickly and it might be difficult to hike up a mountain under 90 degrees or more with high humidity. My foot and knee are hurting a lot and my doctor made X-rays of them saying that when I come back from my next trip we’ll see what can be done, so walking is painful. It’s nice to meet a blogging friend. On my forthcoming trip I am going to meet four new blogging friends – I am very happy about it.

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  20. Looks like you had a good day despite it being cold. Interesting cabbages. I've never heard of those before. How exciting that you got to meet your first Blogging friend.

    A well earned glass of wine!

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  21. What a wonderful day you had, in spite of the weather. There's nothing quite like the special joy of meeting a blog buddy. I'm off to check our your new friend.

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