About a year ago I noticed some women using the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator on my Temple Tuesday. I wondered if I could make it to the top in my "not so great" physical condition. My assignments there take me up and down several times of day and so I started taking the stairs. The ceilings are high so by the end of a day I usually have done about fifteen flights of stairs. I can do it top to bottom now without feeling excessively out of breath.
that detour enabled this detour.
Labor Day we decided to take the hike in spite of traffic on the mountain passes and the probability of crowded roads. We went to Lake Dorothy on the edge of the Alpine Wilderness - one of the few hikes in that area that does not require permits. Our guide book said "in a little over one mile after leaving the highway take forest road...." As we left the highway we saw one of those orange signs - "DETOUR - one mile". We kept going knowing that we might be disappointed by a closed road and an inaccessible trail.
We found the turn off just before the roadblock and drove up to the trail head to find the parking area almost empty! Some forest service workers were cleaning up and mentioned that this trail head is normally full every weekend.
Off we started
Enjoying the plant life on the way up. This is Canadian Dogwood - a personal favorite.
Half way up we say this lovely spot. The water is beautifully clear. Some other hikers there mentioned that they have been at this pool and seen it crowded with kids. They also said the lake was usually crowded too. We speculated that the trail was empty because of the warm dry weather and maybe people were hiking at higher elevations not normally open this time of year. Then we realized the value of that detour sign.
I wonder how many people turned back because they didn't have the same information we had or because they made a false assumption. The crowd had been deterred by the detour sign.
The second half of the trail is where my temple stair climbs paid off. Most of the trail looked like this. Nicely constructed stairs.
A few fun fungi on the way to the top delighted us.
The lovely large lake at the top of the climb didn't get very much of our attention, but we ate our lunch here.
We needed to head back. We did stop to play in the streams heading into that lovely pool half way down though.
We cooled our feet off nicely.
I used DER's hiking poles and will probably never hike without them ever again. With the poles I don't have to worry about balance and since my eyesight often causes me to misjudge distance, those poles made me feel like I didn't have to pick my way through the rocky areas of the trail and made the little stream crossings so easy. Going down hill, we adjusted them to be taller and I felt steadied.
The traffic was slow once we got on the highway. Fundraising groups were chasing the slow down with water bottles for sale on the side of the road. We stopped at a roadside place that advertised fresh fruit milkshakes. I ordered blackberry, DER ordered blueberry. The blue was better than the black.
I finally made it into the Alpine Lakes area! Check one off the bucket list.
