Dennis Matthews, fairly freshly back from five weeks in Germany has had a bum knee – knee surgery a few months ago – so he needed a fairly mild hike.
So did I. My last hike, July 4, was terrific but that night my left calf more or less blew up (pulled muscle and muscle spasms) so this is the first hike I have done since then.
And I was so careful today – stretching before and after the hike, lots of electrolyte replacement (think: Gatorade/G2), compression sleeves on my calves, and not straining too much.
So we did Cedar Butte, as I had done on 7/3 with Derek and Rick. On the way down we investigated the Southside Trail but didn’t go too far, since we were without GPS or map. Something for me and Derek and the Garmin to check out.
On the way back we checked out Rattlesnake Lake:
And the lake, in spite of the rocky shore (no beach, sadly) is very popular:
And as we left we noticed a cool stump, a remnant of the logging back in the day (as are all the stumps now visible due to low water level in the lake itself):
So that’s it – not sure how far we went, maybe 7 miles or so, we were not exactly making record time, plenty of long breaks, about 5h 15 minutes. But lots of fun.
Dennis wants our next hike to be Mason Lake and that sounds good to me. As for me, next weekend I will see about doing something like Mt Washington again, as I am planning a hike with my friend Bruce Stobie and his pals up McClellan Butte on 8/16.
I definitely need to get back in shape for that one.