Saturday, September 22, 2007

Blanche Lake Hike










This turned out to be the hardest hike I've ever been on. It was only about 6 miles total, but it was a very steep and rocky climb. Sarah (age 18) was our little Gazelle: running ahead of us the whole way. She is amazing. Then came the two old Hippo's lumbering along as best they could. That would be Joe and me.
We had to stop short of our destination, due to some rain. It concerned us enough that we turned around. For a little while I wore my rain poncho. It only rained about 20 minutes, but for all we knew it could get worse. We didn't want to take the risk.
We've learned on these hikes that going up is a workout for the muscles, but going down just kills the knee joints. If I didn't have my handy treking poles it would all be impossible.
Sarah made it to the van 45 minutes before we did. She thinks we're slow. From her point of view it's true, but I didn't see many people in our age group up there, so I'm satisfied with what we managed to do.
The pictures are a bit dark, because it was cloudy.

2 comments:

Susan said...

Great pictures! The scenery is so lovely! Once again, I remember doing this hike with dad and aaron. I recall quite vividly how steep it was... it never relented! It really is too bad it started raining because the lake itself is very rewarding! So worth the effort of the strenuous hike! You'll need to go back and try again when the weather is less threatening. :)

Dadoo said...

This about killed us, however we were tantalizingly close to destination. I hope we can try it again.