A good hike for a wet day

Richard, Chris, Richard, Heather, Al (also me, Mel, and Kirk not shown)

Since the weather forecast was less than stellar for our usual Thursday hike, Melanie had suggested that we drive up to Samish Overlook (shown here) and make our hike either very short (if the weather is really terrible) or moderate (if it's better than forecast). Eight of us left the Senior Center this morning with cloudy skies, but basically dry conditions as we drove to Samish Overlook. We've done this hike plenty of times from Chuckanut Drive, but this was a first, making it possible for us to increase or decrease the distance traveled based on conditions.

Richard sawing through some branches on the trail

We saw plenty of evidence of yesterday's windstorm, with lots of trees across the trail. Richard is sawing through a couple of the small branches with his Swiss Army Knife in this picture. At this juncture, we still had mostly dry conditions, with only a few raindrops falling on us from the wet trees when the wind blew.

The non-view from Oyster Dome

Then we ascended the trail to what would have been our destination, should the weather have been less pleasant: Oyster Dome. No view to speak of, and the wind was blowing a gale. It was early, so we decided to head off to Lily Lake.

Al on the trail

I saw this rather pretty monochromatic picture as Al was hiking along ahead of me. The yellow detritus is, I suspect, fresh fallen from yesterday's windstorm, creating lots of interesting patterns as we hiked along. On our way to Lily Lake, the sky started to spit a little. Not much, but we knew what was probably coming our way.

Lily Lake today

Here's what we saw when we got to Lily Lake. Lots of mist and not much view, so no reason for us to climb up to North Butte. However, the mild temperature and light rain didn't discourage us much. It was time to decide where to go next.

Discussion about our options

After some discussion, we decided to head to Lizard Lake and make somewhat of a loop before heading back to Samish Overlook. There's really not much difference in the atmosphere of Lizard and Lily Lakes. The only way I knew which one is in which picture is because of their order. We went off to Lizard Lake before heading back home.

Lizard Lake today

The mist had cleared somewhat by the time we reached Lizard Lake, and we decided to take a quick lunch here before heading back down to Samish Overlook. It wasn't warm by any means, but after a pretty satisfying lunch, we started back. And you can probably guess what joined us about this time: a light rain.

Returning in the mist

Nobody minded too much, because we had enjoyed a much better day than we had anticipated. While we were in the trees, we were protected from the wind, at least, but there were moments when we had sideways rain and strong wind on our way back. Since we knew we weren't far from our destination, nobody complained and everyone continued to be glad we had come this far. We covered around 7.5 miles and somewhere around 1,800 feet up and down. Not one of our hardest hikes, but I have to say that it was a very good hike indeed. If I had it to do over again, I would go, gladly. Thanks to everybody who helped to make today's adventure a good one.
:-)