Senior Hiking #373 - Gold Hill

51°

Oct 4, 2010…Gold Hill + extra 3 mile loop…Tr #3 & Tr #2…
hike # 373 - by Betsy

We woke up to hard rain…it rained all day yesterday and rain was predicted for today as well so this was no surprise. We headed off to one of our rainy day hikes, and chose Gold Hill again since it makes for a nice longer hike. And there was no one at the trail head. Did not put the rain pants on nor did I even bring them. Jim wore shorts. I wore longs. The tree that fell down between us last time is still lying across the trail. We chuckled a bit about our experience with the three falling trees.

I found myself on the look out for mountain lions and bears today…stems from watching the story on TV last night of the biker who was attacked in California several years ago. I think I’ve been watching too many episodes of “I Survived.”

Before we even got to the top, the rain began to come down hard, soaking my pants and making me cold and wet. My hands were also getting cold in spite of mittens. We finally had to stop for me to put on another jacket under the rain jacket and it was not fun undressing in the rain to accomplish this. The wind picked up just a tad as well.

Up at the view spot on top it was totally socked in and we could see nothing. Continued on up to the road where had to decide whether to do the extra 3 mile loop or not. My thought was that if it was still raining hard, I would nix it but God, with ever present sense of humor, stopped the rain so I had no excuse. Stopped at the view spot to look over at Hope, but of course could see nothing but fog. We ate our lunch here and then continued on to the beginning of trail #2. It was still cool enough to leave jackets on and thankfully I didn’t overheat climbing the trail but I did have to stop and take a rest and an energy gel. The rain and rain gear always wears me down. It took us two hours, less five minutes to do the loop. I don’t think I ever checked it before.

About 20 minutes from the bottom, we noticed a huge broken up birch tree lying in the trail and it was not there on the way up…so it had fallen down since we went up. Large pieces about two feet long lying about everywhere, on and down the trail. This is turning to be a menacing trail...the birch trees rot on the inside and finally just give way. We looked up and could see the tree it had broken free from. Scary.

Normally this trail is 100% litter free but today we found two empty Starbucks coffee cups on the side of the trail…we took them back out with us.

Left home 9:50Started up 10:20Got back to truck 3:55
Total miles hiked 12½ - 13 miles
Total hiking time 5 hours, 35 minutes