Enjoyable snow and ice day

Eleven adventurers (me behind the camera)

Today eleven Senior Trailblazers decided to check out the Chuckanut trails to Fragrance Lake and beyond. We were supposed to do a longer hike than we ended up doing, but conditions made us cautious about possibly hiking too far up the trails. It was icy and slippery going uphill to Fragrance Lake, partly because the trail gets plenty of use. It was cold but without even a breath of wind for the first part of the hike.

Snow-laden branches

The higher we climbed, the more snow we encountered. Filtered sunshine helped to make the hike delightful as we headed up to Burnout Point. (This was instead of trying to make it up the Rock Trail, since it was icy even where foot traffic was negligible.)

Samish Bay

Our progress was slow, because we needed to be very careful with every step, since the recent cold weather and strong winds had created possible pitfalls, with fresh snow hiding icy spots and disguising treacherous terrain. So we proceeded slowly, still enjoying the day and the company. Nobody was in a hurry.

Thank you, Melanie, for this picture

I like to make sure that I get a shot of myself for the blog when I'm not in the group photo, and Mel took this one, showing me in one of my favorite places: on a hike with some great friends.

Mt. Baker and the Sisters

We walked another half-mile to this view of Mt. Baker. We weren't sure if there would be a view, but the high clouds didn't mar the magnificence of the mountain. It was a little early, so we discussed whether to go further or just stop for lunch. For some of us, there was no question: let's stop.

Melanie choosing her lunch spot

As you can see, there was plenty of snow at our lookout point. Frank said that his GPS showed us at 1,800 feet (550 meters), and after we put on more clothes, we settled in for a rather leisurely lunch. By that I mean we spent maybe a half-hour here, and Melanie brought another one of her wonderful cakes. She even had napkins and forks this time, making it hard to pass up one or two servings.

Icicles

We decided to come back the way we had gone up, but once we got to the Fragrance Lake road, we took the road instead of going back on the trail, figuring it would be easier to navigate the slippery spots. For the most part, we were right, but there were several very icy places that made me extremely happy to use my poles to keep me upright. Most of the time, anyway; I did take one fall.

Waterfall and ice

When we got to the waterfall, which is usually rather unremarkable, we saw plenty of icicles and snow from the recent cold. In the middle of the picture you can see a hole made by the ice, surrounded by an abundance of beauty as we snapped lots of pictures.

At this point on the road, it became even more icy and slippery, so we took our time making it back to the cars. We covered right around eight miles, give or take a bit, depending on whose device you preferred, and 2,000 feet up and down. Another good day of exercise, with friends who make any outing more enjoyable.
:-)