Blanchard Mountain

Yesterday a very vigorous storm moved through the Pacific Northwest, bringing rain, high winds, and basically some pretty nasty weather. I woke several times last night to howling winds and figured that at least I'd have a few good friends to share my misery while on our hike up Blanchard Mountain today. However, by the time I arrived at the Senior Center, we had a good turnout: all the regulars showed up. Plus the second, less dedicated hiking group canceled their scheduled hike, so we picked up a few strangers who joined us today, making a total of nineteen Seniors.

And the weather cooperated! Although it was cold, overcast and sometimes windy, we were prepared for much worse. The trail was a little muddy but nothing like we've had in the past. Peggy and I took credit for the rain staying away, since we both had put on our rain pants before starting the hike. We hiked four miles up about 1,800 feet of elevation to the North Summit lookout, where we were treated to an actual view.

This picture looks across the bay at the town of Anacortes, south of Bellingham and the starting place for some of our other hikes. You can see that the clouds were threatening, but we didn't have any rain all day. Looking a little bit to the north, I used my telephoto lens to get a picture of this boat.

I had to lighten the picture a fair amount to make the boat more prominent, so this is not the true color, it looked much more like the previous picture before I doctored it up. Since it was still early when we reached the summit, not even 11:00 am, we decided to hike back down to Lily Lake to have lunch. Once we got there, it was interesting to see that some beavers had been very busy yesterday. We saw no beaver lodge or beavers at work while we were there, but we could tell they will be back to finish what they started. (You can click any picture to enlarge.)

And last of all, we sat on the bridge eating lunch while overlooking Lily Lake, and the sun came out for a few minutes, just in time for me to get this picture showing the lily pads, some pink unknown flowers, and the sparkling water of Lily Lake.

Just after I snapped this picture, the sun was again obscured by clouds. As we hiked back down to the cars, a few sprinkles threatened rain, but not enough for anyone to stop to put on any rain gear. In the car on the way back to the Senior Center, however, we had a deluge. That is what we thought we were facing today, but we went anyway and it turned out to be a very lovely day, as you can see. I got home early, which is why this post is already up! I hope you had a great Thursday in your part of the world, too.
:-)