A Sunday hike

Fred, Peggy and Diane in front of one of the twin lakes

Well, there I was vacillating about whether or not to go skydiving on Sunday, when on Saturday Peggy mentioned, while on our walk, that three of the Ferndale group were going to Winchester on Sunday and there was room for one more person. Since I had never been there before, that answered my question: let's go hiking!

Blueberries within reach of the trail

The hardest part of this hike up Winchester Mountain to reach a fire lookout is the drive there: It's 6.5 miles on a rutted one-lane road, with cars going in the other direction needing to pull over if possible, or back up until you find a good spot. It took us 45 minutes to travel that short distance. And there were so many cars! I remembered why I'm so glad I get to hike during the week, avoiding countless people, dogs, cars and screaming kids. But we started early, so we beat the crowds for the first part of our trek up to the lookout. It's under two miles and up 1,300 feet (meaning it's steep but short), but the views!

Twin Lakes from the top of Winchester Mtn

We didn't hurry up the trail; it was hard not to sample as many blueberries as we could. When we first reached the lookout, all the people who were up there for the night had started down, and the hordes coming up were still below us. If you look closely at that picture, you can see the parking lot between the two lakes. It holds more than 30 cars, and almost every spot was taken by the time we returned.

Cabin and Mt. Baker in the distance,  sign giving elevation of 6,521 feet

We explored the pristine cabin, which is available to anyone who wants to spend the night there (first come) and signed the guest book. Wouldn't it be incredible to see the stars on a clear night? It would be so quiet and peaceful. And the views!

Diane, Peggy and Mt. Baker

When I took this picture, I was inside the cabin looking at the view of my friends and the mountain. Then I set up the self timer and got this picture of the four of us before we started back down. We spent close to an hour on the top, and before we started our descent, more than a dozen people had arrived, plus dogs, and on the way back down we passed dozens more, with rambunctious kids and their canine companions.

Diane, me, Peggy, Fred

We thought we might saunter down the trail to the High Pass junction and then mosey up that way a little ways, but while we were up here at the top, we noticed that it's not exactly flat to get to High Pass, meaning you would need to descend into a valley and then climb up to see the view. Instead, we were happy to try to beat the crowds of cars that would be all trying to leave at the same time.

As it was, even though it was fairly late in the afternoon, there were still plenty of cars filled with more people on their way up the road. It was actually good that we finally got out when we did. We stopped at Graham's and had our obligatory ice cream cones before heading home. I'm glad we didn't try to cram more into the day, as I was still plenty tired and was glad to have earned my wine. What a great way to spend a Sunday!
:-)