Rainbow Ridge

Fred, Mike, Aspen, Mary, DJan, Diane, and Al

Just in case anybody thought we wouldn't take advantage of wonderful weather in the Pacific Northwest, the Senior Trailblazers did an extra-extra Monday hike today (I know it's Tuesday). Since the weather was so gorgeous, seven of us decided to make a final Monday hike, this time to Rainbow Ridge. Last week we did our "last" Monday hike on Sunday, but lest you get confused, I'll help you figure it out. All this past summer we decided to have an extra hike every other Monday, but because of weather and scheduling conflicts, we didn't follow the schedule very closely. Fred (the guy on the left) picked out some juicy hikes and we started them in July. Now it's October. Today was supposed to be a stupendous weather day and, as you can see by these pictures, we were not disappointed.

A new Trailblazer, Aspen, joined us today. Very interesting and definitely a character. That's her making a heart with her hands (I'm on the left) and Mary is kicking out her leg, inadvertently creating a mastodon. We had a lot of fun with this group today, and Aspen amazed me by hiking for the last half of the hike back down to the cars barefoot! This muddy and difficult descent was impossible for me to accomplish without shoes, I'm convinced, but my feet were rather envious when I saw her squishing the mud between her toes like a kid. She made it back to the cars without ever needing her shoes.

Aspen took this picture of me, Mary and Diane, with the beautiful backdrop of Mt. Baker behind us. The sunshine just didn't stop all day long, and it was downright warm, with me unable to test out my new jacket except when we stopped for lunch. I'm wearing it in the first picture, but I didn't really need it. While we were hiking, I had to take off clothes to stay comfortable.

The moon was setting behind these rocks, and I used my telephoto to make it larger. I was so pleased with this picture, since it's the first time I've tried to capture the moon. I'll do more of these now that I know how cool they can look. We had the moon, the sunshine, Mt. Baker, and the always beautiful Shuksan to gaze at all day. Here's Fred in front of Mt. Shuksan.

On the way home, we stopped for dinner at Annie's outside of the town of Concrete. It was a wonderful meal with good friends, and I neglected to take a picture as we chowed down our meals, but we will be back to this wonderful place again next year. We decided to rate this hike today among the top seven of the season, for obvious reasons.

Oh, and today when I got home I found a package from Far Side in my mailbox, with my prize from last week's contest, the Sand County Almanac. I'm too tired to even open it tonight, but soon I'll share it with everyone. Thanks, Connie!
:-)