As you know, we like to challenge ourselves, we like to go a little longer or a little higher but always within reason. We’re 67 and well aware of our limitations: when I awake in the morning after a long hike, I can feel every limitation in my body. Today we repeated a hike that we’ve done before which goes over two passes but, towards the end, we climbed to a third pass and down on our way back to the trailhead. Hey, a triple, a hat trick, a trifecta. Whatever it’s called, we did three of those little babies.
We really enjoy this loop trail but learned the hard way our first time on it that it is best to go in a clockwise direction. If one goes in a counter clockwise direction, one hits Bell Pass first and then heads on to Windgate Pass and back to the trailhead. Big mistake. Bell Pass is steep and rocky and a trail that the locals use as a workout climb: they go fast, they don’t stop, they get to the top, turn around and head down as fast as they climbed up. No stopping to take in the view, no stopping to catch one’s breath, no stopping to give one’s legs a rest. I felt as if I was merely an obstruction on the trail, something they had to get around. And, of course, I felt old as I huffed and puffed upwards.
The second time we hiked this loop, we went clockwise and climbed up to Windgate Pass and around to Bell Pass from the back, where fewer people are. If I’m going to struggle, I want to struggle out of sight. Today we followed the same strategy. Actually, the climb up to Windgate is much more gradual and not as steep. My kind of climb. We reached Windgate Pass where another hiker took this picture of us (note: I’m holding on to that pole to hold me up),
circled around to Bell Pass where we had this view,
headed on down back to the trailhead but knew that we could not pass up a turn to the right to go up and over Gateway Pass and then back to the trailhead from there.
We have an ap in our I Phone that keeps track of our track so we can put them into a program in the computer to keep track of them. On the way back to the trailhead, Gary realized that his back-up battery was low and thought that it might run out before we had reached our car and not get the whole track. I told him to go on ahead, I’d make it at my own pace right behind him. And, he was off. He’s like a gazelle on the trail, much quicker and more sure footed than I am. Me, I’m like a heffalump.
On his way back down the hill to the car, Gary found a blue baggie of dog poop that some dog owner had left for someone else to pick up and take back to the trash can at the trailhead. Come on, leaving it on the trail? Why is this bright blue baggie not in the trash? Well, at least, that person had bagged it. But to leave it on the trail in a bright neon blue baggie? Come on. Gary picket it up and carried it down the trail. Of course, we’re now wondering what others meeting him on the trail must have thought: hmmm, he has a blue baggie, hmmm, he has no dog.
11.3 2612’
No comments:
Post a Comment