
Derek’s knee has been sore so we have been careful about doing too much elevation and distance until he feels it is fully healed. Today was a good step.
We picked this hike because it is not very long (7 miles, out and back) and not very steep. But it was a bit steeper than we anticipated. Most of the ~1500 foot elevation gain was in about a 2 mile stretch, so that is reasonably steep.
Anyway, it was a decent workout on a rainy Thursday. This is a popular trail for various reasons such as:

And nice views of the mountains that surround the alpine lake to which we were heading:

And a few fun bridges:

There was one tricky little spot to negotiate. Approximately every other log was unstable:

And there sure are wildflowers aplenty these days:

All in all a nice hike, a good step on the road to recovery for Derek.