Fragrance Lake/Burnout Hike

my gear

Today's trailblazers hike was to be an out and back in the Fragrance lake area. There were 14 of us setting out from the Clayton beach parking lot. The weather was cloudy and cool as we headed out to the interurban trail to where it has a junction with the Fragrance lake trail. We were all enjoying the hiking and the camaraderie. We decided to stop and look at Fragrance lake before heading up to a logging area (Burnout) and to check out the view from there.

We quickly realized that three of our group were no longer with us. As we pondered what to do, Alan (our fearless leader) shared with us his concern that he didn't think they knew where we were heading.  There are many trails in the Chuckanut mountain area that link to each other, so there was a number of directions they could have gone. We pressed on to where we had planned hoping that they knew where to go. The clouds were low but there was still a fairly good view.

More pondering...........

Farther down the trail we decided that part of our group would head down to the parking lot to wait and see if anyone showed up. Cell phone numbers were confirmed and we split up hoping one of our groups would find our missing men. As it was getting on in the morning the group I was with (the search party) decided to stop at the Fragrance lake - view point for lunch.

Another great view -

After lunch we decided we would head back up to Fragrance lake and see if there was any sign of them, hoping we wouldn't have to go all the way to Lost lake to search. As I was preparing myself mentally to possibly do quite a bit more hiking than was planned, our trio of  wanderers came ambling down the trail! Hurray!! After much sharing of stories we happily hiked "together" back to the parking lot.

All in all another wonderful day of hiking (9 miles) and I'm very thankful for the happy safe ending for us all.

Djan's version of the fun:
http://djanstewart.blogspot.com/2011/06/alls-well-that-ends-well.html

Bright lights in times of tragedy

A Raven (Ray Lewis - Baltimore Raven football player) a Panther (Reggie Howard - Carolina Panther football player) & an Elephant!

In the midst of trying times it is so wonderful to see when people step up and help others in their times of need -

A few months ago I did a post about the tragedy of LaShandra Armstrong. Read it here

I was so saddened by her story that day, that she felt that was what she needed to do and that she took the lives of three of her small children at the same time. One of her children managed to escape. I've wondered how he is and how he is surviving with this in his past. I was so glad I happened to be watching the "Today" show this morning and they did a follow up to his story. Read about it here . It tells of how Ray Lewis (I know he has a past that is highly debated, but this is a different story) & Reggie Howard have embraced 10 year old La'Shaun Armstrong as their brother. They want to mentor him and provide emotional & financial support. They talked about an opportunity to help with a college fund for the young man.

Another story that's been in the news is the devastation of the Joplin tornado. I thought it was great that a circus that had been scheduled to do a show used the elephants to help them move the large objects that needed to be moved. In the video there is a controversy of opinions about if this is exploitation of the elephants or a ploy for free advertisement for the circus, but it seems the reaction of those from Joplin is just "thank you", See video here

I'm thankful as well that these "bright lights" have stepped up to help make these people lives a little brighter.