Day 3 at the Park

t’s been another slow, lazy morning. It’s supposed to be a hot day today. We are going hiking at Hat Lake and see how far our feet take us. The trail is supposed to be shaded, at least at the beginning. We’d like to get in a slow, long hike today.

Update: We are sitting outside, under the shade of our awning, having just showered and eaten ice-cream sandwiches in 85+ degree weather. We hiked to Paradise Meadows and continued to Terrace Lake this morning. It was a 6 mile hike, and half was uphill. The meadows were beautiful, serene, and peaceful with a bubbling brook running along one edge. Then, we continued to the lake and it was all uphill. Within the last .3 miles, we had to guess at the trail because snow covered much of it. We tried to follow old footprints and eventually found the trail. On the way back, we forged our own trail over the snow packs. It was a difficult hike but well-worth the effort. The lake was pretty but the scenery was even more so. The lake was snuggled between hills of beautiful rock and trees. We hiked into the valley to get to the lake.

I was definitely feeling the prior two days’ activities and felt a little less energetic. Or, maybe it was the heat. We started hiking at 9:30am when it was about 65 degrees. When we finished, the truck thermometer read 85 degrees. Mike was his usual hiking self and climbed the hill like a goat.

By the time we were done, we were layered quite heavily with sunscreen, bug spray, another layer of sunscreen and sweat. We also drank all the water we took with us but didn’t really run out. Our hiking preparedness is improving with age. No more long hikes in flip flops and no water.