Lily Lake and water

It was a completely different day than we had on Tuesday. In fact, pretty much the opposite. We even had fewer people than usual; only eleven hardy Senior Trailblazers showed up for a hike in the rain. We drove 18 miles south into Skagit County and started our trek from the Samish Overlook. This picture taken at the Overlook shows the only rays of sun we saw all day, off in the distance.

As we started out in the wind and rain, anxious to get going so we could warm up, we headed uphill toward Lily and Lizard Lakes. After a few minutes, I realized that my Camelbak water bladder was missing the closing piece at the end, and when I tried to take a drink of water, it just kept on coming out! With my fellow hikers yelling instructions ("Hold it upright so it will drain back into the bladder!" "Don't lean forward or it will start again!"), I finally managed to stop the flow and we proceeded on with the hike. Rain coming out of the sky, water flowing out of the bladder, it wasn't lining up to be one of our best hikes. However, the ideas of how to title this blog began emerging from my clever friends: "My water broke and I lost bladder control!" was the best one of all.

We hiked up to the North Butte, which looks out over the bay and Lummi Island (the largish one in the middle), but we weren't happy about having lunch at this point (our usual stopping place), since we were being pelted with rain AND the wind was truly unfriendly. So we headed back down into the trees for this lovely lunch spot.

I know many of you were envious of our snowshoe trip on Tuesday, but I must say I'll bet there's not a reader out there who wishes you were with us today. However, you would be wrong. It was mostly the Pacific Northwest kind of rain, which comes and goes, varying from a light mist to some fairly large drops, but no downpour. We didn't spend lots of time at this lunch spot, getting up and moving on before we got really cold. This spot was sheltered from most of the wind and rain, but it wasn't a particularly enticing place to relax. Off we went to Lily Lake.

If you were to enlarge this picture of Lily Lake, you would be able to see myriad water droplets making pretty patterns on the water. Since this was our destination, we were all happy to head back to the cars and make our way to a drier environment. That would be pretty much anywhere inside, so some of us went back to the Senior Center to have a cup of coffee and dry out a bit before heading home. For the day, we covered almost nine miles and went up and down somewhere around 1,500 feet of elevation.

Although it seems like a bit of an ordeal in many ways, it was truly pleasant to be hiking in the rain, because of my companions, their great attitudes, and proper gear for the elements. Wish you were here!
:-)