Lake Ann 2010

Last August 21 we headed up to Lake Ann for our annual trek (see the link for last year's incredibly different hike). Today we got a whole different feeling on this adventure. It's an interesting trudge: you start at almost the same elevation you end up at, meaning you hike down about a thousand feet and then cross a fairly flat rocky area before beginning a climb up another thousand feet. You end up at about the same elevation as you started, causing some people to say that this hike is uphill both ways. The picture above is what Lake Ann looked like today: we were in a cloud the whole day. Our resident wag said that this was a good thing and a bad thing: good, if you're looking at the exercise (in cool and comfortable weather) or bad, if you were looking for a view.

When we started the hike, the weather sure looked like it was going to clear, as you can see from this picture of Mt. Baker through the clouds, taken as we pulled into the parking area. But no, it was not to be. For most of the day, we got occasional rays coming through the clouds and we thought it would clear, but instead we would get a view like the one below:

Once we gained the ridge and looked for the glaciers, we saw the views come and go like this. The waterfall is coming from the glacier that you can see by looking at last year's post. When we stopped for lunch, I saw this view and thought, erroneously, that now I would be seeing Mt. Shuksan. This is as good as the view of Shuksan got today. Although it was foggy and misty all day, it never rained.

See? Shuksan was TRYING to come to my camera lens, but you wouldn't know it from this picture. So, instead I decided to take lots of pictures of the abundant flowers and waterfalls. Here's the best flower picture (complete with dewdrops):

Behind the purple flower are blueberry bushes. We found quite a few really good and tasty blueberries when were were at altitude (around 4,800 feet or so), but as we descended we noticed that they got greener and more sour. We did sample as many as we could, however. I didn't get any really wonderful waterfall pictures, this is the best of the lot. Nowhere near as wonderful as the one in my previous post, but beautiful nevertheless.

You can never tell when you see something you think will be spectacular and then look at it on the big screen. Sometimes the pictures are stunning in their beauty, and some just don't translate well through the lens. I have no way to tell which is which. What I did experience today was somewhere around nine miles of hiking through the mist and fog with twelve of my favorite Senior Trailblazers, a good time, and a sore and tired body that I'll take to the gym tomorrow to work out today's kinks. I hope you have also had a wonderful day.
:-)