Hiking Goal Reached!! 100 miles completed during this hike.

Oh, yes. It’s definitely fall.

There have been some nice days lately. Chilly, but dry (ish). In fact, as I sit here and write this, the sun is peaking out and the day is promising to be very palatable. Unfortunately, our schedules don’t always allow us to drop what we’re doing and head out into the mountains, just because the sun is out.

Lena and I had a hike planned for last Friday. We’ve had it on our calendars for weeks now. Since it was pretty much the only day this month that we could get out on a hike, it was a rain or shine/now or never (at least not this month) kind of outing.

So yes, this hike turned out to be a rather wet one.

The Perry Creek hike (same parking lot, off Mountain Loop Hwy, as Mount Dickerman) is a good one though. On a drier day, this would have been a winner.

The trail starts out in the forest, but soon it comes to a clearing. This was not good due to the rain. If we didn’t hike through exposed terrain so much, maybe we would not have gotten so soaked!

The trail gently climbs and weaves through rocks around Mount Dickerman for a while, as it follows Perry Creek.

This hike is rather long (over 10 miles). Some people get to the meadows and turn around and some choose to climb to the top of Mount Forgotten. I believe that going all the way to the top will give you around 13 miles.

This time we didn’t even make it to the meadows. Lena is a trooper and won’t give up unless forced to, so I knew it was up to me to decide when I’ve had enough. For a while there I kept telling myself that it was just water. So what if we were wet? Soon enough we’d head down, back to the parking lot and could blast the heat in the car to dry off.

But at some point I realized that as soon as I stopped for a moment, I felt chilled. And then it wasn’t fun anymore.

When we got to the part where we were to cross the Perry Creek Falls, I decided I had enough. So I told Lena I wanted to turn around. Luckily, she didn’t put up much of a fight.

This really is a gorgeous hike and I’d love to come back here soon. And even with it cut short, I reached my one hundred mile yearly goal! 🙂 Now, on to some biking…

6.2 miles, 1,451 ft of elevation.

YTD Hiking Miles: 100.3