A Wet Hike

60/365

Today three of us headed to Indian Lake for a hike.  We signed in at the trail head, and began our wet, dripping hike, only to discover not far into the hike that the trail was flooded .  The boards that had served as a walkway were washed away and there was no way to get across the mini-lake without sloshing through water about 6 inches deep.  That may not sound too bad to hard-core hikers, but we just didn't want to do that.

So we turned around and signed back out--our fastest hike-time ever.  Fortunately, there was another trail not far from there, and even though it was a paltry 1.1 miles each way, we decided to go for it since we had already driven 1.5 hours to get there.  

It was a significant incline considering this was only our second hike of the season and it provided a nice workout.  We started out while it was raining lightly but we had no idea the trail would be so wet.  Below is the little "river" that was running down the trail for about half the distance.

I know it only looks like a little rivulet, but believe me when I say that the ground on either side of it was saturated.  It wasn't long before we all stopped trying to keep our boots dry.  We gave up and just walked through the wet areas, our boots often sinking up to the laces in water.

After all that work, and all that wet, this is the "view" that greeted us.  Sheesh!!

But it sure is green and lush up there~~well...everywhere.

And here are the boots feet that trod that slushy trail this morning.

After returning home I discovered that a couple of towns just west of us had been flooded again because of the incessant rain we've had this year.  It's heartbreaking.

There's more rain in the forecast.

Sigh!