South Hill history hike

Do we look frozen?

Today, we were treated to a cold but fun hike in the South Hill area of Bellingham. One of our members, John, grew up in the area and showed the eighteen of us what the area looked like over the past century or so. We started at Boulevard Park, seen above, with sunny but frigid weather (around 27°F). We were all bundled up and set out from here uphill (which nobody minded, as it warmed us), into the Taylor Dock area. We made several side excursions to see different sites of historical interest. We learned about why the streets in Bellingham are so skewed: the remnants of four cities.

Bellingham was officially incorporated on December 28, 1903, as a result of the incremental consolidation of the four towns initially situated on the east of Bellingham Bay during the final decade of the 19th Century. Whatcom is today's "Old Town" area and was founded with Roeder's Mill in 1852.

John showed us where the home he grew up used to be, which is now condos and apartments. He played in the area and told us that the current beautiful Bellingham Bay was, at one time, a dump. No, really: a place where old dilapidated buildings and homes were just dumped, along with lots of other detritus. He said that it smelled so bad that if he and his friends played near there, they had to bake a bath before they were allowed into the house. And now it's just beautiful. Hard to imagine.

We made our way up the Taylor hill and saw the elementary school where John went, and it's still filled with students, playing outside in the cold, some with short sleeves and sandals! 

Old pictures from the early 20th century

John had some pictures that showed what the area looked like long ago. That's John with some of them, which I captured with my cellphone, but they aren't very good, so I'll skip trying to show you. We did compare them with today's landscape, which chronicles incredible change. We walked up a street where we met a truly interesting person, Brian Griffin, who showed us his garage where he builds ukuleles, and much more. That article gives you a good synopsis of his many talents.

Then when we reached the top of the Taylor Hill, we headed to Western Washington University, which I learned was once simply a teachers' college. His parents and he himself graduated from there. We also saw the town's original hospital, where he was born. I cannot even imagine living one's whole life in one area, since I've done so much moving around, not just growing up, but afterwards as well.

Our lunch spot

After finding and making use of the bathrooms in the main university campus area, we stopped for lunch. It was still bright and sunny, and it had warmed from cold to almost bearable, but nobody was shedding much clothing, as you can see here. For such a cold day, we had a really good time, and I learned so much about the history of my adopted home town. Thank you, John, for everything you shared, making the time we had today a memorable one.

:-)

Teddy Bear Cove

The sign before descending to the Cove

Today a huge number of hikers (22) went off to Teddy Bear Cove, with another ten or so who took the longer trip to Anacortes, to hike the Goose Rock trail. I went with the local group, the biggest group I've hiked with yet. We started out at the Fairhaven Park entrance and headed off via the Hundred Acre Woods trail to finally get to Teddy Bear Cove.

It was cold, especially starting out, well below freezing and a low overcast hanging overhead. (The other Tuesday group went off to better conditions, with more blue skies but still plenty cold.) We made our way along the trail, needing to cross a busy rail line (two fast trains went by while we were there) and finally to our destination, Teddy Bear Cove.

Once upon a time, this was a well-known nude beach, and you didn't show up there without being expected to strip and swim naked That's gone these days, but the subject came up several times. With below freezing weather, nobody was tempted. 

Teddy Bear Cove

We stopped here for a nice break before heading back via a loop trail. We saw a few ducks swimming in the water, but otherwise it was just us. Joe, our leader, climbed the bluff behind us to see if he could capture the large group of hikers.

Whole lotta hikers

I am in there somewhere, as I watched Joe climb up and yell for us to look up and smile. You can see we are all somewhat well dressed as it was still plenty cold. But I must say that today's hike managed to lift my spirits a great deal. I am now home, feeling better than ever for having been out and about, covering more than 5.5 miles and climbing and descending just under a thousand feet of elevation. 

I am finding these Tuesday group hikes to be a lot of fun, and even though they don't challenge me like the Thursday hikes do, they are well worth the effort to get there and put myself into the mix. Today was very well spent and also obviously well attended. I look forward to whatever next week's hike brings!

:-)

Chanterelle 2025

Viewpoint today

  

Now that we are well into the new year, our three Senior Trailblazers are making some big changes. First of all, we will have two separate groups made up from the Happy Wanderers group, which has grown too big. Last week we started the experiment, but because the weather wasn't wonderful, one group that headed to Anacortes was small (two). The other group, which had a nice five-mile hike from the parking lot across the street from Barkley Village to Whatcom Falls Park and back. You can read about it here.

Today we had one hike that I know very well, the first half of the Chanterelle trail. I have probably done this more than a dozen times in recent years, but this was the first time with such a large group. There were seventeen of us who made the trek up a thousand feet of elevation to this familiar spot. 

Joe took the photo

I didn't take many pictures, but the amazing clouds caused me to want to show them off. Our leader today, Bill, posed in front of them for me, as you can see here.

Bill, clouds, and tree

It was cold when we started out, but it didn't stay that way, as we worked our way up the mountainside to the overlook. We had a nice snack, since it wasn't actually lunchtime yet. We headed back down to our cars and were back to the Senior Center by noon! And we had a good workout, too. The pace was faster than I'm used to, but I managed all right, and other than not taking any pictures (which would have slowed me down), I hustled to keep up.

By the way, the other group went to Blaine and the Peace Arch Park and had fourteen hikers. They went about the same distance, but they didn't have any elevation to climb. I'm not sure who took the picture, but here's the other group, just for fun.

The Blaine Happy Wanderers

It didn't matter which group you went with today, since everyone was happy to have the great (if chilly) weather and the wonderful company. I look forward to more like this, please! And I'm glad to be home and well worked out, too. I should sleep well tonight once again.

:-)

Whatcom Falls from Barkley

On the trail

Today marks the first day of our new Senior Trailblazers setup, with two hikes on Tuesdays and two on Thursdays, all of different degrees of difficulty and distance. Since today started with plenty of fog and little visibility, only two people decided to take the longer drive to Whistle Lake in Anacortes, while the rest of us (eighteen!) carpooled to the parking lot across the street from Barkley Village and began our fun five-mile-long+ excursion.

It was cloudy and a little foggy for most of the hike, but we had plenty of wide trails to walk along, giving us a chance to visit with many others, and eventually shed some of our warm gear. Even though it wasn't all that cold, it was quite damp and you can see that many of us were dressed for warmth. We hiked past Derby Pond on our way to the pavilion at Whatcom Falls Park, where we enjoyed a bit more socializing and a bite to eat.

A short visit to the pavilion

As you can see from this picture, even after quite a while outdoors, the fog had not lifted very much. But it was very pleasant, and I have to say that as a Pacific Northwesterner, it was nice not to have any rain today. Just fog. After a bit, we went on to gaze at the very full Whatcom Falls. I've seen this when it's barely a trickle, and when it's even more roaring than it was today.

An impressive sight

It was a little disappointing that we didn't have the brilliant blue sky we saw yesterday, but it didn't really matter. We had fun, got exercise, and some great camaraderie as well. And there's always next week.

On the bridge

That's our leader in the foreground, Cindy, who took us unfailingly along the path to give us a good workout, and many happy faces, showing that we had plenty of reasons to be happy that we decided to come out to play! We then returned to the cars via the way we had come, and made our way back to the Senior Center. Until next week, we'll be watching the weather and hoping for another good day.

:-)