Last week's hike adventure

The PTP hikers on High Divide (Chris photo)

Since I wasn't able to hike with the group last week, I asked someone from the Excelsior/Welcome point-to-point (PTP) hikers (Chris) and someone from the Welcome Pass only hikers (Cathy) to send me some pictures of their adventure and a little information about how it went. It turns out that nine Trailblazers did the entire PTP, which turned out to be almost 13 miles since the Welcome Pass road is impassable and they had to hike back to the highway. Three Trailblazers did the Welcome only segment.

Some of the PTPers (Chris photo)

After hearing how challenging it was, even for these strong hikers, I was glad I wasn't able to make a spectacle of myself by being (1) slow, (2) grumpy, or (3) whining. Chris described it like this:

You are soooo glad you didn’t do this hike!  It was a killer. There were 9 of us did the whole loop ... 3 people went up Welcome Pass.  The high meadows were so beautiful!! The ridge walk was continual views (although still gaining some altitude for much of it). We met Al, Cathy, and Ken near Welcome. And then the steep steep steep hike down. And we had to walk an extra mile out to the highway because the road had a terrible hole in it. A marvelous but challenging hike, good company, and tired feet!

And as I said in my previous post, I did do this entire thing once before, five years ago. It was hard then, but I think maybe the Universe arranged for me to miss it when I banged up my knee. (Or maybe it was just me being clumsy.)

Richard and red blueberry bushes (Chris photo)

 The fall colors are still pretty stupendous up there in the High Country, aren't they? And then finally the Welcome Pass group saw the others arriving, looking happy and still doing great. That's Tom and Jim in front here.

Here they come! (Cathy photo)

They probably stopped for a quick breather, or maybe not, before starting down the steep Welcome Pass trail. I don't think I'll ever attempt those 67 switchbacks again, since I know if I had done it last week, I probably wouldn't be walking without pain quite yet. Cathy, who did the Welcome Pass bit, said about her experience, "In a word--grueling.  And I 'only' did Welcome Pass and maybe a mile into High Divide with Al and Ken."

Getting ready to descend to the pass (Cathy photo)

Since Cathy took this picture and Chris is in front of her, I suspect that this is the order they went on the descent. You can see that even with all the downhill work in front of them, the shadows were getting long. But what a beautiful day they had! I am so happy to be a part of such a wonderful group, and I'm also glad it was them and not me!
:-)