Horseshoe Bend

Old growth forests, how amazing! We had such a wonderful time hiking to Horseshoe Bend and then spending some time in the presence of these old trees. I tried my best in the picture to show how incredible this Old Treebeard is, but it was pretty difficult. But if you can imagine that the trunk actually is the same size all the way up to the top, you can see it's a big'un. I learned that these trees are probably 500 years old, so it was a seedling when the Ottoman Empire was young.

We Seniors thought that the Horseshoe Bend trail was three miles out and three miles back, but we discovered (as we earned our name "Trailblazers" while we bushwhacked around looking for the trail going farther in) that the trail is a loop of only three miles total. So we headed up the Mt. Baker Highway to see these old growth trees, and then stopped at Nooksack Falls.
Some of us (especially Mike) can be a bit, well, eccentric in our hiking gear. Mike likes to pretend he's the male version of Mary Poppins, and it works pretty well in the rain, most times, but I do remember seeing his umbrella turn inside out in a big windstorm.

Anyway, I spent all day away from my new friends in the blogosphere, so I'll spend some time catching up with everybody and then get horizontal. I don't think we walked more than five miles total today, but for some reason I'm tired and ready to call it a day.
:-)