My day with the Senior Trailblazers - Oyster Dome

I've been a follower of Djan-ity's blog for a while now,
she has been an inspiration to me in her zeal for health and fitness.
She has also had her share of heart ache,
but has weathered these moments in her life with a strength that is quite admirable.
She is very honest and candid with her thoughts on these events in her blog.

Some of her posts also have accounts of her hikes with the Senior Trailblazers. This is a hiking club that is for members of the Bellingham senior center who are aged 50 and up. I really never thought of myself as a senior "yet", but was really itching to be a part of this group. Since I'm not a fan of hiking alone, I decided to join and see if this group had as much fun and was as fit as Jan had been reporting. There would also be the added bonus of meeting "Jan" and tell her personally how much I enjoy her blog. I had hoped that I was fit enough to keep up with these hardy souls, and was pleasantly surprised that I was. The plan for Thursdays hike was to go a hard 9 miles in the Olsen creek/Stewart Mtn. area, but the weather that morning (rain & snow on Stewart Mtn.) detoured those plans. Everyone agreed that Oyster dome would be a good alternative. We started hiking in rain and even though the oldest person on the hike was 81 years of age we really hiked at a very quick pace. The first part of the trail had several steep ups, and when we got closer to the Oyster dome there was snow on the ground and the decision was made to head over to Lizard lake for lunch. It was 37 degrees and we really felt that wonderful damp cold that chills to the bone, needless to say we didn't sit long for our break. We packed up and took the trail to where the hang gliders used to take off and on down the trail to the cars. I found out that one of the "seniors" carries a GPS unit with him, so he could give us reports of our mileage. We ended up going 10 miles! 

It was even a better experience than I had hoped it would be.

My fellow hikers!

Jan is the one in the foreground wearing
the blue vest.

view from the hang glider take off area

now I know why they all had gaiters on!

I made sure I asked what they would rate this new detoured hike, and was very glad that the report was "hard". Now I'm hopeful I'll be able to tag along on other great adventures with these wonderful new friends.