Yellow Aster Butte Trailblazer hike

16 Trailblazers left the Senior Center in Bellingham ready for a fun day together. Since the hike today was to be in a Wilderness area, we split up into two groups. Only 12 are allowed to hike together in the Wilderness area, presumably to lessen the impact on the environment.

So we split up according to those that wanted to get to the top and those that wanted to take their time on the way up.

I joined the group that wanted to reach the top. I had hiked this trail with the Trailblazers last year, you can read about it HERE. I went with the more casual hiking group, but this year I really wanted to go all the way to the top.

There were low clouds for the start of our hike. As you can see the trail head was a busy place today.

I soon discovered that the Wildflower season wasn't quite over!

Monkey flower

Indian Paintbrush

Even though we had a low cloud start, we were able to see the nearby hills & scenery.

I'm always surprised to see ferns in the higher altitudes.

In the photo below you can see that the trail is free from snow,

today's hike August 2015

As you can see from last years hike in September, we walked across snow in this same area. This was as far as I had hiked last year.

Our group walking across the same area in September of 2014

Onward we went....

The clouds kept moving in all around us and before we went much farther, it was agreed that we weren't going to get a view and that we were probably going to be right in the middle of the clouds. The photo below shows just where we turned around. I estimated that we were about a 1/2 mile away from the top.

Oh well, I'll try another time. It wasn't to be today. We sat and enjoyed a chilly lunch and enjoyed the peek a boo views we got while the clouds moved about.

We caught up with our other Trailblazers with about 2 miles to go & we all returned the rest of the way together. 

A great hike that left me hungry for trying it again, not such a bad thing is it??!!

Endomondo stats:
Total miles - 7.05 miles hiked
Total ascent - 2290 feet
Total descent - 1931
Maximum altitude - 5572
Minimum altitude - 3330