My guy and I went on 'an adventure' yesterday...
The goal was to see this bridge. I won't say where it is, but we thought we had a 7 mile hike through a wilderness area to reach it. My pedometer said it was a little over 9 miles. Rugged...rugged...rugged terrain that 9 miles was, not all of it, but enough that I was wondering how I would make that same 9 miles out by the time we reached the bridge.
At the bridge, we stopped...I quickly took off my boots and socks...and then we ate our lunch. My guy was checking out the bridge, making all kinds of notes, assessing how you could get this bridge out and get a new one in. You can't have motorized vehicles in a wilderness area...helicopter? Helicopters aren't particular fond of lots of tall trees...and as you can see, this bridge is surrounded by them.
A tree, a huge tree, fell across this bridge making it inaccessible to horses, mules, etc. We walked across it...carefully...it's high above a gorgeous waterfall and racing river... It's absolutely beautiful - the entire area.
This is taken from the side we ate lunch on...our trail went off the other side. You can see this bridge is in bad shape...
These were important pictures for my guy...
I had just put about 5 bandaids on my foot...1 blister and one majorly sore toe from it hitting the end of my boot as I walked downhill...oh the wonderful downhill areas!
My guy and the bridge!
"RON, PLEASE be careful," I pleaded as he was down below the bridge examining the footings. You can see below him the waterfall...
After lunch, after examining the bridge, after a bit of a rest...we were ready to head back that 9 or so miles. It was getting warmer... We had started in about 7:45 a.m.... thinking 7 miles would take about 3 hours to hike...well, it took us 3.5 hrs. Then we were stopped about an hour... We got back to the truck at 5 p.m.
My guy is showing how wide the bridge is....
He took some photos of the waterfall....it's absolutely gorgeous!
He was taking lots of notes about...well, I have no idea, just notes about the bridge.
We took off to head back and turned around to take a picture of the bridge from the trail...
The first mile or so of the trail before we reached the bridge included quite a few downed trees across it...some we could step over, some we could climb over, and some we had to crawl under. This was one we had to crawl under...and it had more room than the others...
I told my guy to stand next to it so we could show how parts of the trail were...he did.
I handed him some of my gear while I climbed under...
He told me to smile...that this would be good 'blog material'....
I smiled, but I was starting to hurt...
My pedometer said I went 19.375 miles...I don't think it's totally accurate, but it's in the ballpark! It also said I burned 1614.4 calories...I almost threw it away when I saw that. I figured I must have burned 16,140 calories! (Just kidding)
It took us 4.5 hours to hike out...mostly because I kept having to stop on the climbs. We thought we had plenty of water - 4 liters - but Joshua told me today, we should have had twice that much. On the way back, every time we came to a stream, I doused myself with the cool water. You can't drink it, but I could sure cool off with it. It helped...it gave me a little more umphh to go a little more.
The last mile is mostly downhill...and it's mostly rocks...rocks that are grueling on sore feet...
We made it, of course, and that silver truck looked like a little piece of heaven when I saw it. The truck also told us it was 101 degrees! It took us a couple of hours to drive home... I was asleep, sound asleep by 8 p.m.
It was definitely an adventure!
