Cherish here!
I went on a fantastic hike yesterday! So here's the disclaimer, this post will have a whole lot of photos!
It was called the Green Mountain Trail, and it follows these really cool old mining tracks along a river. It was closed less than one and one half miles in due to landslides but we passed the trail closure signs and kept going, we were on a mission.
The whole trip we saw maybe fifteen people, and about half of them were leaving the trail when we got there. I went with Kim and her long time good friend Jacob, whom I'd only met twice.
It was actually fantastic. I hadn't been hiking in about a decade (which makes it sound like so much more than ten years). He told me it wasn't going to be an easy hike, but I didn't expect to have to straight up climb a wall of rock.
At the same time though, it wasn't nearly as daunting as I expected. I actually did better than the other two. Early on in the hike Kim slipped and cut and bruised her leg. Fortunately that didn't really act up until the next day. When Jacob fell it was terrifying. It was like the sort of thing you see in movies, time slows down and you just see your companion grasping for anything to catch themselves on. We were trying to find our way down to the river to go swimming.
There was a group of people in the area we had planned on hiking down to, so we went on for nearly another mile before we found somewhere we thought we could get to. For a fair distance we were cut off by an approximately fifty foot rocky ledge. Jacob though he could slide down it when we hit a section with dirt and plants on top of the rocks. He made it a few feet before we got him to come back. That's when he slipped. He grabbed Kim's hand but she's tiny, not nearly strong enough to keep him up, and I was stuck behind her. When Kim started falling forwards I grabbed her and she let go of his hand. He slid down the ledge, frantic to grab anything that would hold him.
He tried to play it off as though he wasn't shaken up or hurt though we could both tell he was. His arm was all scratched up, his shirt ripped, and he was afraid he broke his toe. He had to hike through the rocks until Kim and I could make it down the ledge to get to him. Kim was so upset, so mad at herself for letting go. I don't know if she really understands that she would have been hit much worse had she fallen headfirst. Anyway, after much more hiking we finally managed to find a nice place to swim.
This is where things got ridiculous. I forgot my swimsuit. But I had no intention of missing out on the swimming. And I'll be honest, I was not wearing the most demure underwear I could have been. I was so glad I was wearing a sports bra at least. I thought it was funny, I met the guy twice and already he was seeing me in my panties. So I kept my tank top on. Not much, but more than Kim's swimsuit covered.
I didn't think Kim was going to make it into the river. We had to dash across the current in the deep water to get to the calmer part on the other side. There was a trickling waterfall behind us and huge rocks to climb on. And it was cold. So cold I thought I would die. But it was also incredibly beautiful. There's something about swimming in a river completely isolated, so far away from anyone else that all you can hear are the occasional birds and the rushing water that takes your breath away.
We hiked on a little while further. I'm not sure if there used to be a waterfall there, but it looks like this used to be a dam. Which makes little sense where it is and there's no channel on the other side.
Either way, I was the only one brave enough to go all the way to the other side. I think we're going to do this hike again, and next time go past this, though the trail looks really tough beyond. Somewhere there's an abandoned mining town that I'm excited to find. The whole thing was so cool. And walking across this was so surreal. I felt like I had to keep moving, like if I stopped I would fall. Then I felt ridiculous, the diving board is much thinner and I've never fallen off of it. It also doesn't have seventy foot drops on either side, but that's unimportant.
It was definitely one of the best times I've had in awhile. A fantastic start to Labor Day weekend! Have a good one, dear readers!
Cherish out!
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