Skyline Divide very late

Our first view of Baker

Boy, what a day! We had 22 Senior Trailblazers wanting to make a trip up to Skyline Divide, with a limit of 12 in the wilderness area. What to do? We decided to break up into two groups, a slow group and a fast group. After a long trip on a very bad gravel road with potholes, we finally got to the trailhead, all of us. I was in the slow group, which happened to be all women.

Dewdrops on the lupine leaves

As we climbed, we realized that it had rained here recently, and all the plants were covered with dew. It was lovely, and we knew it wasn't going to be around for long, so I captured this lupine leaf.

Having a quick lunch at the top

By the time we reached the top, after struggling up 1,500 of elevation in two miles, we stopped to have a quick lunch before taking off after the fast group. It's not the end of the uphill/downhill once we reach this spot, but we now had views that went on forever. I asked a young man, another hiker, to take a picture of us, and he used the panorama feature, which I don't use but just love!

What a view! And great company, too.

We followed the Skyline Ridge towards the faster group, but we knew that we would see them when they were ready to return, and we would join them too. It was just lovely walking along the trail, and finally we saw the other group ahead of us. The views were incredible, and we enjoyed the light breeze and full sun for the entire day.

A scary crossing

We had a couple of places that I remember from previous trips, when it was important just to put one foot in front of the other and not look down. This was one of those spots.

Return

And then we ran into the fast group and decided to break up into groups by respective cars, and return to the beginning. The number of cars in the parking  lot and all the people we saw on a Thursday were simply unbelievable. As we piled into our cars and headed back down the long road, we couldn't believe it when we ran into roadworks that kept us immobile for more than an hour.

So, finally, I got home and it's now after 8:00pm and my post is almost done. I am really tired and hope I did a half-way decent job in writing this post. Now it's time for a shower and getting horizontal! I already finished my wine.

:-)