A wonderful new group

At the trailhead (taken by Charlene)

Today ten Senior Trailblazers from the second group (the "relaxed" Trailblazers, rather than the "half fast" group, my usual one) went to Artist Point to hike Ptarmigan Ridge. You know I've been thinking about it for awhile, and today I did it. And you know what? I'll be joining these wonderful people again, probably sooner rather than later. I already knew three of them, but I made the acquaintance of the others today.

Yellow skies and very little view today

Although the haze from the forest fires was supposed to be gone, or diminished at the very least, we hiked right into the smoky surroundings, and it never got better. Once in awhile we'd cast a shadow, but most of the time it looked like this.

Bill on the trail

Bill used to hike with the other group, so I knew him quite well. He's got two artificial knees but sure does fine with them, and I saw that the group had some faster and some slower hikers, just like ours. It was sure nice for me not to be at the tail end of this group. Owen, our leader, set a good pace and stopped often to let the others catch up. This allowed for everyone to hike at his or her best speed.

Desmond the newbie

Desmond had never been on one of these hikes before, but he did very well. He lives next door to Charlene, and she suggested he might want to try one of these hikes. At first he was a little slow, but by the time we finished, he was managing to keep up a good pace, just a teeny bit slower than the rest. I do hope he will return; not all the hikes are as challenging as this one.

Leslie, Jean, Cookie

By the time the hike was over, I felt as though I had known these people for ages. It turns out that Leslie is a friend of my friend John from the coffee shop, and we had heard about each other from him. Now that we have met, I can see why John likes her so much, she's great! They are all lots of fun and we laughed quite a lot as the day went on.

Lovely flowers

Although we had little view, we sure did see a lot of beautiful flowers along the way. It amazes me how they manage to flourish in high altitudes with a very short time to bloom. We also saw some mountain goats, but they were too far away for me to capture with my phone camera.

Leslie, me, Jean and Cookie

I asked for a picture of all the white-haired women in front of what we could see of the mountains, and this picture was what I got. Noriko would have been in the picture too, although she's in her late seventies and her hair is still dark!

The clearest view we had today

This picture shows that we had no views at all today, other than a view of the hazy skies and close-by mountains. But it was such a good day anyway: we covered around six miles and some elevation, while being at a high altitude to start with. And we stopped at Graham's for our regulation ice cream on the way back, just like the other group does! So I was happy and had a super day, in spite of the haze. Life is good, and I'm thrilled to have made so many new friends.
:-)