Church meadows, three weeks later

Fifteen Trailblazers headed up the trail today

It was only a mere three weeks ago that we trudged up this same trail to the Church Mountain meadows, knowing we would be seeing lots of snow. It was no different today, except in those three weeks all of the snow was gone from the trail, and it wasn't until we saw the meadows that we had to move from beautiful woodland scenes to reminders of winter.

Native columbine growing next to a tiny stream

Since we thought that the clouds would clear off (they are probably gone by now, but they never cleared for us to see the mountains) we headed upward in pleasant conditions, hoping for a view. In another three weeks, I suspect the meadow will be clear, or almost clear, of snow. But today, we enjoyed the greenery at the lower elevations, and we even saw some mushrooms thrusting themselves up into the light.

Are these... magic mushrooms?

We made our way across the biggest stream crossing before we hit the meadows without incident, even though some of the rocks were slippery. Thank goodness my boots are waterproof! I was careful, though, not to slip and cause me to have wet feet. That's already happened once this season, and that was enough to make me cautious.

Making our way one at a time

And then we emerged from the trees and the trail onto the snow. Although much was gone from our previous visit, it was simply as if we had stepped back in time. The temperature was not exactly cold, but the lack of any sun and the snow itself caused many of us to suddenly feel much colder. We didn't go too far before we decided to stop for lunch.

Trudging toward our lunch spot

I know you can't really tell by looking at this picture, but the amount of snow has diminished significantly from our trip three weeks ago. We could tell, but the lack of any sunshine, not to mention that it's not easy to walk in this kind of slushy snow, meant we wouldn't make it much farther than last time. At least we were all prepared for snow, and many Trailblazers had strapped cleats and other gear onto their boots to keep from slipping. Here's our lunch spot.

Having lunch and donning warm clothes

No sun, although I was optimistic for much of the time that it would clear enough for us to see our beloved mountains. But it didn't happen, and all of us put on jackets and gloves so we wouldn't get too cold. All except Mikey there on the left, he was still in shorts and a t-shirt. But as I've said before, I don't think he was born on this planet.

The only view we had today

As we began our descent back to the cars, the clouds cleared enough for me to get this partial view. Not much, but I realized that it didn't really matter: it was cool weather for hiking back down, we got plenty of good exercise in the beautiful Pacific Northwest wilderness, and we had lots of interesting conversations both up and down the mountain. We will probably attempt Goat Mountain again next week, since the long-range weather looks good for Thursday and we will see what three more weeks of snowmelt looks like up there as well.

Anyhow, it was a fine way for us to spend our Thursday, one which many of us look forward to all week. Feeling pretty darn satisfied on this Independence Day eve. Hope you have a GREAT holiday!
:-)