Lost Creek Ridge

Start of Lost Creek Ridge trail

Yesterday, Monday, the Trailblazers went on our first "extra" hike of the season. I don't know where anybody had heard of this hike before, Lost Creek Ridge, but only two of the twelve who went had ever been there before: Mike and April, who only go on our Monday hikes in the summer. We met early in the morning to carpool, and managed to get 7 in Mike's car and 5 in Fred's, and then we set off for the Mountain Loop Highway and our eventual trailhead, a good 100 miles away. We started the hike just before 10:00am.

April and Hank looking at the spiderweb

Someone saw this spiderweb as we were hiking along, and I tried to get a picture of it. Although I really needed some dew or mist for it to be fabulous, I did actually capture it better than I expected. The nice thing about digital photography, you can just snap away and if it doesn't work, it's an easy fix to delete it. The temperature and terrain were quite comfortable as we began the hike, which starts out almost level in the first mile, and then it begins to go upward, without letup.

April, Mike, Chris, Rich,  Diane, Steve resting

You can tell by the way we were dressed that it was hot, and getting more so all the time. By this time it was almost noon and some hikers started up the trail while others proceeded more slowly. I ended up hiking for more than a mile by myself, with some behind me, but the majority ahead of me. I stopped to take a few pictures, but mostly just kept plodding along, enjoying the views now and then of unfamiliar mountains, until I reached Round Lake after almost five miles and 3,800 feet of elevation gain. I was really pooped, but the payoff was worth it.

Frozen Round Lake

It was not only a beautiful sight, but the breeze was incredible, cool and strong enough to keep all the bugs away. You can see in this picture (below) that the sweat on my shirt was nowhere near dry when this picture was taken, and I almost didn't use it because of that, but it's just too good not to. We had our lunch overlooking this lake. We knew that if we had gone just another short distance, maybe half a mile, we would be able to see Glacier Peak, but since it was getting late, after 2:00pm, we headed back down.

Diane and me

The views were stupendous, and we even got a glimpse of our old friend Mt. Baker in the distance, from a side we don't usually see. I didn't include a picture, because it was so hazy in the distance that it didn't show up. But we sure did get some other mountains in high relief.

Sloan Peak and more: Doug, Al, and Hank

It was after 5:00pm by the time we reached the cars, tired and very ready for the day to end with a trip to Granite Falls and our favorite eating spot, Omega Pizza. I had a new (to me) beer called "Irish Death." It was great, and went well with my pizza. We didn't get back home until almost 10:00pm, and I was too tired to do anything but collapse. Hence the post in the middle of the afternoon on the day afterwards. Well, I finally did get 'er done, and now I can pick up my book and do next to nothing for the rest of the day.
:-)