Chanterelle, anyone?

An old favorite with a new name

Fourteen Senior Trailblazers met at the Senior Center to hike on another rainy day. We have done a version of this hike for many years, but recently the Forest Service and volunteers have given it a facelift: a new name and plenty of good trail work to make it a much more interesting trail. I enlarged the trail description so you can read it:

We didn't find any mushrooms today

We have called this hike by different names, but basically this has been the starting point for a nine-mile hike up the south side of Stewart Mountain, containing lots of bushwhacking and whatnot to get to what would not be much of a view today. Here's a post from 2013, so you can see what the entire hike looks like in the spring. Today we sauntered up the Chanterelle trail to the overlook. The work they've done on the trail makes it much less steep and adds a little distance as well.

Overlooking Whatcom Lake

We had a little light rain, nothing like last week's deluge. This rain is what I consider to be more indicative of Pacific Northwest weather. Some of us had ponchos, and I got this picture to show our colorful array.

Frank, Joy, me, Kirk

Everyone looks at their picture and comments about some aspect of their appearance. I couldn't help but notice how SHORT I am compared to everyone else. But these are all especially tall people, I tell myself. See the nice gravel at the overlook? That's new, along with several new switchbacks on the way up, making the trail much easier to navigate.

Three people are not in the picture, I'm not sure why

We gathered for a group photo, and I'm not sure who took it. Dianne, Rick, and Melanie are not in it, so it was one of them. You can see that we are all a little bit wet, but nothing we hardy souls can't handle easily. It helped that it wasn't all that cold, although a light breeze had picked up after awhile, so we moved on up the mountainside.

Since our next section was uphill, we were plenty warm by the time we got to our lunch spot. Although it was still early, nobody really wanted to continue up higher on the logging road, so we spread out and enjoyed a nice stop out of the wind. And somewhere along the way, the rain quit.

Lovely leaves

As we headed back down, we fully expected the rain to begin again, so nobody took much rain gear off. It's partly out of superstition: once we think we're clear of the rain and act accordingly, it's like a neon sign to the elements. We had lots of beautiful spots like this one as we made our way through fallen leaves on the trail, and although we never saw the sun all day, nobody was unhappy to have it remain nice and dry. We covered around seven-and-a-half miles and 2,000 feet up and down, so it was a good workout.

Home early, being warm and cozy, it's even too early for my wine. It won't be long, though; I am feeling quite content and happy to have been outside with my good friends today.
:-)