Samish Crest to Lake Padden

Just a few of the twenty-two

It was an amazing turnout for the Happy Wanderers hike today: 22 of us raring to go, starting from Racine Street through to Lake Padden. The story of this particular hike is told on a website from Bellingham Trails. A little snippet from that site: "The trail brings you up to a lookout over the city and bay. It also continues from Racine Street through to Lake Padden for the adventurous in spirit!"

We wandered through lots of damp forest on our way to the lookout, which was a bit of a dud today, with little to no view. 

Hmm, what am I looking at?

The rain had stopped before we began our hike, but it was wet enough that we kept our warm gear on for most of the day's six-mile-plus hike. Although the view from here was not impressive, the deep forest around us was quite beautiful.

So pretty, even the fungi

That curious fungus (lower right) caught my eye as we were walking. You know it must be brand new, since we are got plenty of moisture in the past week, for the first time in months. And then we walked on as we made our way to Lake Padden, where we would stop for a quick bathroom break and a snack.

Lake Padden

And you can see that it's beginning to brighten up a little as well. Although the clouds were still there, occasionally we began to see some lightening in the sky. I finally removed my jacket, since I was getting warm and we were ready to begin our return trip, with lots of ups and downs.

More mushrooms

You can almost see this mushrooms growing as we watched. Not quite, but one of them caught some rain in the middle, reminding me of a magical kingdom where fairies drink out of such things. 

Licorice ferns growing out of that tree

It was, by this time, beginning to lighten up enough that we saw our shadow now and then, and the gold leaves in our path looked radiant as the sun peeked through the clouds. By the time we returned to our cars, there was more sun than clouds, and everything sparkled from the earlier rain. 

All in all, it was a lovely day, filled with lots of laughter and even quite a bit of exercise before it was all over. I'm not sure of our total altitude gain and loss, although there was some to help us keep our muscles challenged. I was very happy to be part of such a great outing!

:-)