Back to Hiking

We were determined to get out and start hiking again yesterday. It was about 10:30 by the time we had breakfast, did our morning routines and hit the trail. There are several options for hiking the hill behind us, starting with an easy, low level hike on the lower portion of the hill, to the big daddy of them all - Josie's Ridge on the top of the hill. We took the middle trail which is the highest level before the strenuous climb to Josie's Ridge. It was what we call a moderate hike, with some steep climbing, but mostly up and down walking through some pretty areas.

We took lots of photos, most of which have been seen before, but we did get some new photos of wildflowers and some scenery that we never get tired of seeing. Starting with this shot of the town as seen from close to the maximum elevation we had on this hike:

 

The wildflowers were out in all their glory and we took these shots of a few of the ones we haven't seen before:

There were times when it seemed like we were walking through a garden:

We crossed several junctions of other trails along the way, but for the most part, we stayed on the trail that is named Sink or Swim:

The trail that turned off in the lower right was the trail to Josie's Ridge - a hike that will be on our schedule in the near future. The trail we took was steep enough as you can see the trail rising in the photo in the upper left.

Eventually, we came out to the chair lift on Sno-King. The view from this area isn't too bad either:

 

We took the trail down through the woods to the bottom , where it brought is to the same tunnel that we showed last year:

 

 

This came out on Cache Street to the restaurant where we had lunch with Karen and George a couple weeks ago - The Lift. We stopped and had another great lunch before heading home:

 

 

 

Overall, we hiked nearly 5 miles. The hike was strenuous enough for us and we arrived back home in time to shower and get ready for work at 3 PM. We need to just keep up the pace and do more hiking to get back in shape. It won't take much with a few more hikes like yesterday.

 

Our final day of work for this week is today and we leave early tomorrow for Cody to repay the visit from Karen and George. We also look forward to seeing several more friends that return each year to work in Cody at the Buffalo Bill Village...