Boundary Way

Ward, Linda, and Boundary peaks behind them

Today 17 Seniors hiked up a fairly easy (comparatively, anyway) trip from the trailhead, only 5 miles round trip, and up about 1,300 feet. The two peaks behind Ward and Linda (on the left side of Ward, from our viewpoint) show the border between Canada and the United States.

On the way up Mt. Baker highway, we had a very interesting little diversion: although I couldn't see it (being a few cars behind the leader), a Fish & Wildlife truck was stopped in the middle of the road, and two police surrounded it from their own car, one of them with a machine gun (yes, really!) pointed at the head of the driver of the F&W vehicle. My cohorts saw the driver get out of the truck and kneel in the road, hands behind head until they were cuffed. By the time I saw the incident, there was only a fuzzy head sticking out of the back of the police car. It wasn't until we got to the trailhead that we shared stories. Apparently the perpetrator was trying to steal the truck and was apprehended in the act.

When we got to the trailhead, we saw a border crossing van and asked the driver if he knew any details, but he didn't, so we started our hike: we headed gently up to Cowap Peak (I have NO IDEA how to pronounce that) where we had spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. Here is where most of us had our lunch.

A few more enterprising of the hikers decided to have lunch on the narrow crossing to the true peak, which was so steeply down on both sides that it gave me vertigo, so I stayed with the larger group. The view of Mt. Baker was pretty impressive, though.

And just before we headed back down to the trailhead, some absolutely beautiful low clouds began to come in over Mt. Baker. We joked that the mountain was wearing a hat. This is probably the most perfect picture I've gotten over the past year of this mountain.

All in all, we were back home hours earlier than we've become accustomed to, because the hike was less then half the distance of last week's. I am here at home, posting this on the same day as these pictures were taken, and not completely spent from the exertion. It was a superb day, with good friends, and with these wonderful memories. (Click on any picture to enlarge.)

:-)