I expected to do about a 6 miler today – up Cedar Butte, down Southside, down Olallie but I screwed up and added a mile.
When I got to the junction with the Olallie Trail I noticed the pink flagging tape I had hung to show the intersection, which is far from obvious when you are on Olallie, was gone. So I took off my pack, put down my walking stick, dug out the tape, and put up another strip.
Then, about .5 mile down the trail – doh! – I realized I had left my stick. So I turned around and flew up the trail and there it was. Probably my best uphill time for quite a while.
As always, I love the forest:
There was hardly enough snow to mention. One tiny little patch is all that is left:
If you look closely at the track above, the extra thick blue line on the right (east) is where I had to back-track. Oh well, adding a mile to a hike is rarely a bad thing.
Once I got back onto the PTC trail it was like downtown Seattle – but it is a wide trail, so no one feels too crowded.
I made my goal: three hikes this week. I hope to do it again next week, but I am trying to ramp them up slowly enough to not injure myself or otherwise wear down too much.